


Free Until They Cut Me Down

by ilfirin_estel



Series: the free!verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Civil war in Heaven, F/F, Fallen!Castiel, Free!verse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Paradise Lost references, Post Swan Song, Violence, amnesia!castiel, slow-build romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:29:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilfirin_estel/pseuds/ilfirin_estel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>History repeats itself. Heaven is split between two choices: Reformation or Rebellion. Heaven is split between two brothers: Castiel or Raphael. Maybe this time the angels will learn from their mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anna

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, here is the HUGE DISCLAIMER. This is a WIP. I am probably the slowest writer ever. But I have no plans to abandon this fic, so just bear with me. **UPDATE:** sorry, I broke up with SPN and no longer have plans to continue this fic! :(
> 
> This fic was originally posted on [livejournal](http://ilfirin-estel.livejournal.com/36705.html). Drabbles and smaller works in the 'verse can be found there. There are also old notes on the fic there, and the version posted here has been edited.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel's fall is beautiful and terrible to behold.

Castiel’s fall is beautiful and terrible to behold. She watches from below—still beneath all of them, unwilling to dive into the discord of Heaven without Father, Heaven without a clear purpose, Heaven tearing itself apart. Castiel, she knew, had tried with all his conviction and stubbornness to remake the ranks and find order in chaos, but he had been fighting a losing battle from the start.

Guilt tastes bitter in her mouth, but she swallows it down and reminds herself of her decision to remain on the sidelines and let events simply happen. Once persecuted and burned, twice shy out of sheer self-preservation. Regardless, everyone believes her to be dead, which makes hiding that much easier.

So she stands, feet planted firmly on the earth, and watches Castiel arch through the atmosphere, a fiery comet of blue-green grace and yellow-orange Holy Fire. Wrapped in the flames is a humanoid shape; she has to squint to make out the form of Jimmy Novak writhing in agony. Interesting. Perhaps the new Rebellion thought they were punishing him in giving him back the empty vessel.

They dismantle his grace, light up his wings, force him into a soulless vessel, and cast him out of Heaven—because he was the one who dared to defy their revelation, the one who chose mortal men over brothers-in-arms. And God—it must have been the Father—brought him back from death, healed his battered, depleted grace when he cut himself off from the fold. Father must have decided that Free Will worked wonders in his son, Castiel, because He abandoned Heaven again without a word. And His children—still so angry, so self-righteous—wove their jealousy and vengeance into a snare to trap the angel that had risen against them, destroyed their plans for an Apocalypse, and then tried to reform them in the aftermath.

Heaven mutinied against the Reformation, throwing all of Castiel’s work back into his face. Though she has been down here on the earth, blending in with humanity, she can still listen to the songs, and the sound she hears now makes everything inside of her—human memory and angelic nature—cringe.

She has to shut out that part of her mind, that innate radio channel into the music mortals are denied. But shutting that out will not silence Castiel’s screams as his dying grace and broken wings rip him apart.

She remembers falling. But her fall was something she chose, and though it was painful, there had been a freedom to the action, a beautiful defiance that she still cannot bring herself to ever regret. This fall of Castiel is like watching destruction itself being born.

There is a strangely impersonal horror roiling inside of her as Castiel’s body twists and turns in his flaming descent into humanity. He writhes, fingers clawing at his throat, digging through human flesh to malfunctioning grace, blue eyes squeezed tightly shut as he wrenches, tears his grace out because the chances of it surviving outside of his body are greater than if he keeps it in. The Holy oil destroying his wings cannot reach his grace and raze everything that he is meant to be if he chooses to tear himself asunder.

All roads, all paths, all choices are fear-ridden. Perhaps that is why the Father did not originally grant angels the freedom to choose. Because that freedom is terrifying when you’ve always had someone telling you what to do, holding your hand. God cut the strings, and Castiel is falling, falling, falling, hurtling through space like a dying star. The ripping of his grace is a small supernova, churning the ocean and blasting over buildings, light scattering everywhere then returning to one fixed point: the supernatural ball of blue-white that Castiel hurls away, casting it down, down, down, screaming all the while.

She holds her breath and finds herself praying for him as the fires separate, two meteorites careening into water. Wings disintegrating in the stretch of blue sky, Castiel tumbles into the waiting arms of the sea. She watches it swallow him up, but does not stay to see if he surfaces as a gasping, battered human.

When darkness falls, however, she goes back to the boardwalk and climbs over the railing, feet slipping and sliding against the rocks. She hardly stops to take a breath because pausing for anything would result in second-guessing.

She dives deep, lets the waves drag her down into the depths of the ocean to the bright, pulsing light of Castiel’s fierce grace. She is still angel enough to not need air, still angel enough to reach out and cradle that piece of Heaven’s light to her breast.

 _Cas,_ she thinks as she ascends, breaking the surface, swimming to shore. _They are not the Father; they will never have the power to erase us from existence._ She collapses against warm sand, rolling over to peer at the map of constellations stretched out above the world. She breathes and she vows to keep this grace safe from the vengeance of Heaven because she has to believe in something, in someone. And if she cannot place her hope in the Father, she will put it in the possibility that Castiel will return and set Heaven back on a righteous path. He always was the most determined angel in their garrison, after all.

If there is one angel that she cannot bear to fail again, it is he who learned to doubt, as she did. Her brother-in-arms. Her brother in the search for true righteousness and justice.

He will find her, or she will find him. She thinks that maybe, just maybe, this new path will give her the strength to come out of hiding and risk everything for good, for God’s Truth once again.


	2. Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a point where pain steals the ability to string words together, leaving only one long line of sound pouring from straining vocal cords. Right now, Dean has no clue what’s hurting him, but it went from zero to a hundred in a second flat, and he has no words, there are _no words_.

He’s on the phone with Lisa, halfway through a conversation about whether or not they need more peanut butter—fucking _groceries_ , for Christ’s sake, that’s how domestic Dean’s gotten—when it happens. One second he’s asking Lisa what brand she wants, the next he’s sprawled on the floor in the middle of aisle five, writhing and screaming like someone’s dumped a tub of acid down his back.

There’s a point where pain steals the ability to string words together, leaving only one long line of sound pouring from straining vocal cords. Dean’s tolerance for pain is a hell of a lot stronger than most—thirty years of torture in the Pit’ll do that—and he remembers reading somewhere that the mind forgets the sensation of pain right up until the edge of paper slices into the pad of a thumb or a bullet slams through skin and sinew. But Dean doesn’t care what anyone says, he’s got Hell seared into his brain and he can swear up and down that he knows the exact threshold where pain shifts into pure agony.

Right now, he has no fucking clue what’s hurting him, but it went from zero to a hundred in a second flat, and he has no words, there are _no words._ Later, he’ll tell Lisa that it was like someone had cut into his back, gripping all the muscles and stretch of spine between his shoulder blades before mercilessly tearing everything straight out. But as it is happening, his mind and body are just stuck on howling in anguish.

There are voices and worried faces hovering above and around, a frantic crush of civilians trying to help, trying to reach out to him as he thrashes and just wants whatever it is to stop, please _God,_ or kill him already. Whatever the bystanders say to calm him down or figure out what’s wrong—nothing connects.

But over all of them, in a tiny corner of his brain, he hears someone very far away wailing his name. Fingers clamp over his shoulders, clenching down on white-hot scar tissue. Darkness suddenly slips over his head, dragging him under.

The thought he has before he blacks out is a word, a name. Cas.

_Cas—_

-

Dean dreams about drowning. About heavy, black water clinging to him as he peers up at blurred splinters of light, struggling to go, get there so he can _breathe._ Drowning is supposed to be peaceful, all control just drifting, slipping through nerveless fingers—but that’s all bullshit. There is nothing peaceful about burning lungs and worn out limbs unable to catch anything and pull _up._ There are no waves tossing and turning him—he can’t force his body up to the churning, stormy surface where he thinks he could gasp a mouthful of air—only pressure on all sides, crushing him into the deep.

In Hell, he cried out for Sam over and over until his voice went hoarse and gave out. In this dream, he cries for Castiel, but his voice is swallowed by the unforgiving ocean dragging him down, down, _down..._

-

He wakes, bolt upright in the guest bedroom, gasping and coughing, choking on salt-water tears and the overwhelming feeling that something has gone horribly wrong. Lisa is there, telling him _it’s all right, you’re all right, you’re safe,_ like she did when he had those God-awful nightmares about the Pit and his death-drenched past—Mom, Dad, Pamela, Ellen, Jo, _Sam_ —Jesus _Christ,_ Lucifer wearing Sam to the prom and everything, he still can’t get that out of his head and it’s been over a year. Lisa wraps her arms around him like she used to, before they’d come to this platonic living arrangement where he’s her damaged-goods boyfriend in name only. He leans into the comfort she provides only so much because she’s still that same woman who can only handle so much crazy, can only take a portion of fucked up Winchester shit, not all of it, never the whole story. She can’t handle it. Not like Bobby. Not like Cas.

It’s the feeling of Lisa’s hands stroking across Dean’s back that makes him realize that his skin isn’t torn or scorched. He’s clean and whole, unscathed, except Castiel’s handprint on his shoulder aches like it hasn’t in years.

He can’t even begin to put together what all that means. So he just sits there and lets Lisa go through the futile effort of making everything seem like it hasn’t completely gone to shit.

“There’s something wrong with Cas,” he manages to tell her when he’s calm enough to speak. But she doesn’t answer, doesn’t say anything, and he remembers that he’s never really explained the entire story in all of its angel-of-the-deadbeat-Lord glory. But the very thought of talking about it, reaching across the disconnect between the two of them to tell it all in full right here, right now—it’s just so laughable.

So that’s what he does. He laughs. And then he can’t stop laughing, this sick, hysterical wheezing ripping out of his throat, aching in his stomach. He doubles over, folds into himself, and just laughs and laughs because he’s crazy with worry and he doesn’t even know what to do about it. He just knows in his gut—and his instincts are still razor-sharp, year of retirement from hunting or no—that Castiel, holy tax accountant, new sheriff in the great Upstairs, is in deep shit and Dean’s about to get the hell out of this apple-pie façade of a life (he’d told Lisa years ago, before Hell, before the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t, that this wasn’t his life and it never would be, and he was right, he’s still right) and go dig him out of whatever grave he’s made. Because Cas… Castiel is just—

Lisa is a smart woman. She may not know or want all of the details, but she can put together the answer pretty damn fast. “You’re leaving,” she says, not a question. He still has to confirm it, has to nod and apologize even though they both know this was a long time coming.

He’s not cut out for this. Both of them had carried dreams, building each other up as idealistic, overly romantic versions of themselves to gather dust on pedestals as they strove forward, struggling to squeeze into those molds. And Dean loves Lisa, yes, but he knows he’s been way too damaged by an entire life of blood and adrenaline and weird-ass shit to ever be saved by anyone. It’s been a year and he still, _still_ automatically lays out salt lines and wakes up choking on the memory of sulfur after only four hours of sleep. He can’t step foot in the Impala out of fear that he’ll put his foot on the pedal and drive on and away without a single glance in the rearview.

It kills him every day that he’d promised, he _promised_ Sam that he’d stick around for this, but Christ, he’s never had it in him to be content with normal like Sam always had.

So the lack of surprise, shock, desperation, whatever is that’s supposed to belong on Lisa’s beautiful face... Dean just takes it, internalizes it, thinks _yeah, that’s... that’s not surprising in the slightest._ They both knew from the start that it wasn’t going to last.

“Can you bring me my phone?” he asks her, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, threading his fingers through his hair. As Lisa goes off to find his cell, he allows himself a minute to recognize how utterly helpless he feels. It scrapes his insides, leaving him hollow, bereft. Castiel is in trouble and, if Dean’s honest with himself, he doesn’t really have a clue where the angel might be, other than a vague idea of water heavy with salt filling up his lungs.

If his dream even means anything at all. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Castiel has affected his sleeping patterns—hell, the guy’d been dream-walking through his subconscious instead of popping into Lisa’s kitchen ever since he’d zapped back to Heaven. It had been nice, actually. No explanations needed for Lisa, and Dean had still been connected to Cas.

After losing Sam—and that still hurts every single day—he’d been grateful that Cas hadn’t completely given himself over to the Reformation mission. Maybe it was selfish and desperate, but that Cas willingly set aside a slice of his time solely to visit Dean was… well, it was a lifeline Dean needed.

Dean’s man enough to privately admit that he cares about Cas. The thought of the angel being dead or worse twists ice-cold panic in his bloodstream. He breathes against the sharp pain of it as the image of Cas falling, sinking deep in the ocean, blue eyes dimming as he gives up, lets himself drown…

“Fuck,” Dean mutters, shaking his head to clear it. He has to do something, has to find some concrete clue to make sure that Cas didn’t— _won’t_ meet that fate. Lisa walks in, finally handing him his cell, and he does the first thing he can think of, the only other lifeline he feels like he has left in the world of the supernatural after everything that has happened. He calls Bobby.

-

“So, just to be clear,” Bobby says, sounding only faintly incredulous—because really, this is so not the craziest thing Dean has ever told him about, not by a long shot. “You had a panic attack in your local supermarket then had a nightmare about drowning, and now you’re telling me without a shadow of a doubt you think _Castiel_ is in trouble?”

Dean knows it sounds stupid, like he’s paranoid, but his gut is telling him that he’s right. Crazy maybe, but right. Dean’s fully prepared to go with his instincts on this one.

“Yes, Bobby,” he says, biting out the words, impatient and audibly worried. He’s up out of bed, trying to pace a hole in the carpet because his skin is itching, he wants to _go,_ he wants to jump right back into the fire because it’s someone he cares about in trouble. He doesn’t have time for Bobby’s skepticism. “Just tell me—have you heard anything?”

“All right, all right,” Bobby shoots back, gruff and a little apologetic. There’re the sounds of rustling papers and a clicking keyboard; Dean waits, not bothering to fill the pause up with small talk. He’s just really ridiculously relieved that Bobby still keeps up with hunting intel, passing along information to those willing to go out and clean up after the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t.

Dean would’ve been a part of that relief effort, but a promise is a promise. And this, right now? Extenuating circumstances. Sammy would understand.

“Now that you mention it,” Bobby says after a minute or two. “I did hear something that could be a lead. You said your dream was about the ocean, right?”

Dean has to clear his throat before he confirms. “Yeah,” is all he can manage, the word raspy like he’s been swallowing gravel.

“Well, two days ago, a guy washed up on the East Coast with burns between his shoulder blades. Says here some folks went blind the day before—ah, there we go, freak storm, bright lights, burnt-out eye sockets…”

“Where?” Dean spits out, rummaging through the bedside table for pen and paper, trying to control his trembling hands.

 _Cas,_ he thinks as he writes, as he packs, as he climbs into his baby and leaves Lisa, Ben, and suburbia behind. _Hold on. I’ll find you. Just hold on._


	3. Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His hands scrabble for purchase, sifting through water to find something, anything he can hold on to, but there is only darkness swallowing him whole.

He comes to consciousness to the faint beeping and ringing of machines. His eyelids feel weighted, unbearably heavy—blinking them open is a struggle, but he manages it. It takes him one utterly disorienting moment to realize that the tired, male face staring up at him is his own. He’s lying on his stomach, forehead pressed into a cloth-covered bar as he frowns down into a mirror placed below his bed.

Every muscle in his body is sore, and all he really wants to do is close his eyes again and drift off, but he’s cold under the strange papery sheet he’s been clothed in, and there’s a throbbing in his temples that chases sleep away. He breathes in the sterile chemicals of the hospital and tries to figure out how he got here.

He shifts only barely, but it is enough to send sharp bolts of pain through him. He gasps, frantically grasping for mental stability as a haze of white blurs his sight. The incessant beeping of the heart monitor beside him—hooked up to him¬—picks up speed as he sucks in air. Eventually the pain fades to an almost bearable ache; he pinpoints the center of it in the stretch of skin across his upper back, heavy bandages barely muffling the fire.

He has no memory of what happened. He casts his mind back, back as far as it will go—and then panics because he doesn’t remember anything, he doesn’t even remember his _name._ He remembers heavy water and bright lights and aching lungs, but not a name, not a past, nothing, he has no identity, nothing to hold on to—

He loses control. He doesn’t realize he’s hyperventilating until he notices the machines going haywire, alarms blaring and hurting his ears, but he finds that he can’t stop, and that just makes him panic _more._ He can’t calm himself down, thrashing against the bindings and bandages and pain swallowing him up like furious waves tumbling through his mind from the only memory he has, and he’s saying things, platitudes and prayers, but he can’t hear himself over the ringing and beeping and voices of the staff telling him to calm down, you’re all right, you’re all right, stop it…

Mercifully, unconsciousness claims him again, carrying him into oblivion.

-

Waking up is nothing short of horrifying.

No one knows who he is. No one knows what happened to him. The only thing the staff can tell him is that he washed up on the beach, naked and delirious. He has no identification, no records, nothing but the strange wounds on his back. But even those injuries remain nameless; no one can make an accurate diagnosis. The guess is that they are burns, but the details are unknown.

The sea washed everything away.

-

He feels incredibly lost. Nothing makes sense. He tells that to the doctors and nurses in all the languages he knows—and he quickly learns that he knows all the spoken languages of the Earth. And some that are far older.

He stays mute for days after that.

-

He wants to see what his back looks like. On what he thinks is the seventh day, two of the nurses gently peel away the bindings on his skin, and one of them takes a photograph. Standing, even with their support, proves too exhausting for him; it is a day later when he is able to view the image of the two long gashes, angry red and yellow skin grafts twisting from his shoulder blades down parallel to his spine.

He doesn’t even realize that he’s crying until his tears hit the mirror below him, rolling down his reflection’s cheek.

-

When they think he can’t hear them, the nurses talk about the influx in patients that have had their eyes mysteriously burned out. Even though he can offer up no explanation for the feeling, his heart drops and his stomach sinks with guilt.

-

He never gains memories of a time before the water. Sometimes it’s all he can remember, just the rushing cold enveloping him, sucking him under, and tossing him back up.

In dreams, he frantically twists through waves, inhaling water and air in equal, consecutive gulps. His back feels laid open, the mesh and staples gone, leaving fresh, open wounds—fire unquenched by dark water, searing through strange muscles he can’t find words to describe. This body he’s in feels wrong, it doesn’t fit correctly, too small somehow, but something about it also seems empty and hollow.

Lost. So lost.

His hands scrabble for purchase, sifting through water to find something, anything he can hold on to, but there is only darkness swallowing him whole.

-

Nothing makes sense.

The doctors and nurses try to treat him like he’s normal—and he is grateful for that kindness—but even he admits that often it seems like he is just something _strange._ When someone hands him pen and paper, he finds himself drawing bewildering symbols that he cannot explain. When a priest reads aloud verses from the Bible, he finds that he can recite every word. None of the medication the doctors prescribe for him seems to have any effect; there are suspicions that the dosage isn’t high enough. He has trouble telling when he’s hungry or tired or has to use the restroom. It seems that the simplest of things, things everyone should know regardless of gaping holes in their memory, evade his comprehension.

Someone says in jest one day that perhaps he is not human.

The allegation frightens him. It never leaves his head for a moment.

-

The nurses tell him he talks in his sleep, dreaming about his family—a score of brothers and sisters. They tell him he screams, howling that his siblings are after him, that they want him dead, that they’ll cast him out. But when he wakes, there are no names, no faces, no voices in his memory. All he has to show for nightmares of his past is a sore throat and a piercing pain in his head.

Even when he’s completely exhausted—which is most of the time—he doesn’t want to sleep. Waking up still knowing nothing is too disappointing. The only dream he remembers is of the cold, unforgiving sea.

Sometimes when he swims through the black waters of recurring memory, he gives up. He stares through the surface at blinking stars, and allows spectral hands to lock around his limbs, pulling him down into the depths of hopelessness.

-

One of the nurses in particular befriends him. He knows that her interest in him is born out of the pity that flashes in her eyes, but she forcibly inserts herself into his bleak existence by giving him a name.

The sheet of paper attached to her clipboard reads John, she tells him. He tells her it means _God is gracious_ but the bitter taste the definition leaves in his mouth causes him to reject the name instantly.

The nurse offers him a pretty smile, brushing her blonde hair out of her eyes as she takes out a list. She introduces herself as Abigail— _father rejoice,_ he thinks but doesn’t say—and asks if it’s all right if she helps him pick out a name so they can stop referring to him as _the patient._

He is uneasy. They will not be able to find his name. He’s afraid that, like this body he is in, nothing will _fit_ the way it’s supposed to. But he gives his assent and they go through her list together.

He is right. They find nothing truly fitting. Only one comes close—James. Abigail talks about the nickname possibilities—Jim, Jimmy, Jamie, Jay… Grief suddenly falls over him like a shroud. Just James, he insists before saying that he is tired and would just like to sleep.

-

He tries to be thankful that his back is healing without infections. The doctors comment on how much progress he has made in so short a time. He can sit upright and is able to walk, albeit on weak, unstable legs for only small periods of time.

But he still can’t shake the feeling that there’s something wrong, something’s missing inside of him. He frequently finds himself fumbling for the photograph of his injuries. He stares at the thick, ugly lines, and he aches for what he can’t name.

-

He gets awful headaches. He feels something inside his mind stretch as if it can break out of his skull and reach out into the world, crossing untold miles toward… something. Someone. If he concentrates hard enough, he can see a flash of green eyes, bright with a hidden smile—but the image never holds, a spike of pain nailing through the memory, scattering his thoughts like bits of shattered glass.

-

He never gets any visitors, not like the other patients. Often he worries that he truly has no friends or family searching for him. Sometimes he thinks that maybe this cold hospital is all he will ever have.

He hates it here, hates how helpless he feels, hates being confined to a room and a few hallways. He knows that someday soon he will be well enough to be discharged, but he has no idea where he will go. Whether or not he has a home to return to.

Hours stretch into days. He can’t keep track of time; it jumps and skips in ways that his brain doesn’t process. He has no idea how long it has been since he woke up here, born again in this colorless hospital. Days. Months. Perhaps years. He blinks, and time slips away unmeasured. He can’t hold on to it.

Abigail keeps him company when she can, but she has a job to do, rounds to make. And the truth is that sometimes he just doesn’t want to see her. Doesn’t want to see anyone.

He can’t hold on to anything.

-

Abigail hovers at his elbow as he slowly makes his third lap of the day down the hall. He refused the shoes she offered him, wanting to feel the floor beneath his feet, wanting to feel a connection to the tile as though it could ground him.

They reach the end, and he’s half-heartedly arguing with her about whether or not it’s worth it to make another lap when they hear a conversation going on at the records desk. A man stands there, shifting restlessly as he asks to see the patient with the back burns.

It takes a minute for that to sink in, the idea that someone wants him, that someone has really been looking for him.

Friend or family, the receptionist asks, voice wary because this isn’t supposed to happen, this hasn’t happened before, and the man barks impatiently that he’s a friend, damn it, and he checked that it’s visiting hours, can he please just be directed to the room now because he’s been driving for days straight.

James, Abigail is saying in his ear, tugging on his arm, insistent that they take that fourth lap after all because it will lead him down the hallway to his visitor, saving all of them time. James, come on. Walk.

He usually counts the number of steps it takes to cross the well-known distance. But this time, he doesn’t keep track. He only studies the profile of the man he is walking toward, drinking in the worried lines of that face like he’s never seen another person before. Something inside of him connects, but he tamps down on the feeling, dismisses it as a foolish mix of excitement and hope. He gears himself up for disappointment as the man notices, turns to see him.

The face is wholly unfamiliar until the man smiles, green eyes lighting up with joy and relief. The patient forgets about the nurse at his side, forgets everyone and everything around him except for the man who was searching for him, searching for and _found_ him.

The name is there in his mind, glorious as it falls from his lips: “Dean.”

The man with green eyes— _Dean_ —catches him as he stumbles, and strong arms curl around his body.

And the patient holds, he holds on.


	4. Anna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Host comes for Castiel’s grace the day after he falls. By then she is already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for cutting/body mutilation (carving sigils into skin, broken wings). If I forget any warnings at any point, please let me know.

The Host comes for Castiel’s grace the day after he falls. By then she is already gone. Their howls of rage resound in her head, but she doesn’t falter on her path. She has no specific destination in mind other than _away._

She flies north, as far as she can. Her wings are already worse for wear through neglect; the strain on them now leaves her looking and feeling ragged and frayed. But she has to push forward if she doesn’t want to be found and have Castiel’s grace be destroyed. The Rebellion is thorough, they’ll be sure to finish what they started, razing everything that makes Castiel a part of them. So she keeps his grace bound around her neck. The warm, glowing vial is her only friendly connection to a fellow angelic presence. She swore to herself that she would protect it.

For angels, all circles of Hell are bitterly cold. She remembers this and uses it; she sticks to cold places on earth in the hope that she’s less likely to be followed. But paranoia eats away at her tattered nerves, so she paints sigils into her wings, carves them deep into her skin. Sometimes she even prays to the absent Father for protection.

As long as she keeps moving, keeps painting sigils, she might have a chance. Everyone still thinks she is dead. She hopes no one will recognize the grace that still burns inside her. Though she fully believes that the odds are in her favor for the moment, she knows that she’s just one renegade fallen angel running from the angry, volatile force of a fractured Heaven. Capture and punishment seem inevitable, but she holds out for the hope that she can outlast them. Maybe, just maybe, the angels will forget about Castiel like they forgot about her.

She wishes she didn’t have to sleep, but some things are necessary. After the first full day of flight, she completely shuts off her connection with the Host to avoid detection—and that means unconsciousness is a new enemy. She sleeps. She dreams.

She dreams of laying siege to Hell without reinforcements. She dreams of flying through her garrison’s corner of Paradise, but the lands are barren and voiceless. She dreams of the apartment she lived in during undergrad, dreams of being mortal again, of calling the Milton household and being greeted by a dial tone. Sometimes she even dreams about being awake and staggering through more miles of snow and ice; those dreams are the most disorienting.

There is no life here, in reality and out. The howling of wind and whispers of falling snow are the only sounds. There are no animals or vegetation, only blindingly white snow and ice. She’s passing through an unchanging land, the only thought in her mind screaming _keep going, don’t stop, if you stop they’ll find you._

It’s easy for her to lose track of the days. The last number she vaguely remembers is twenty. Or was it forty? Forty days in her ice-desert, wandering like the Son.

She is supposed to only feel a fraction of the cold a human would, but one day as the sun rises and sets, giving way to other stars in the dark, her wings fail her. Snow and ice stick to flight feathers, weighing her down until she crumples mid-flight. Curling in on herself, she falls, tumbles down, down, down into the snow. The last thing she sees through pain-filled vision is the Northern Lights stretching across the sky. Between one breath and the next, she is taken from the waking world. Her wings are bare, the sigils she relied on healed over in places, and ruined in others. She knows that now she is dreaming, but she chokes on the sheer force of her fear. The Rebellion has a real shot at discovering her location now. It’s over.

Her vision clears, sharpens—or tries to; all she sees before her is _white._ She’d believe she’s still there in the never-ending span of ice, except there is fabric beneath her, scratchy standard-issue sheets like… She sits up too fast, black dream-wings snapping out and catching on parts of her surroundings. Feathers snag the cold metal bars of the bed, knock over the lamp on the bedside table, her sketchbook, her pencils—

She’s in the asylum.

The old panic wells up into a lump in her throat, a sharp, held-back sob of _I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, I am_ not crazy. It rushes back like water, like blood—of course, of _course_ this is where they will find her. The memories in these white walls threaten to break all the strength left in her.

Some scars simply don’t fade under the touch of an angel’s grace.

Music reaches her ears, a far away tone that echoes and twists into something that sounds like her name. It takes her a moment to recognize it because it’s not human, not words, but song—the song the entire Host made when she came into being. Her true angelic name, beckoning. It wraps around her, gentle as a lullaby. She rises to her feet, swaying toward it, ready to go and be welcomed back—

She comes to her senses only when the name shifts into the one her human parents gave her: “Anna…”

“No,” she answers. Her sword materializes in her right hand, her left clutching the vial around her neck. Her wings straighten out, weight balanced. She trembles, but her mind is clear. Her brothers will have to try much harder than that to trap her.

She expects them to charge in, appear instantly before her and _lunge._ What actually happens is quite different. Only one angel emerges from the shadows of the room, a woman looming tall, but her hands are held up, empty and open. A gesture of surrender, of peace—Anna ignores it, doesn’t trust it for a moment, but also doesn’t lash out. She waits instead, every inch of her poised for the fight.

The vessel is young and beautiful; Anna can’t help it when her breath catches in her throat as those cool, grey eyes meet hers. The angel is regal, like a proud, dark-haired goddess, her vessel clothed in a loose-fitting Grecian dress of deep violet. She lowers her hands, and her chin tilts upward, head cocking to the side in something akin to puzzlement. The set of her bare shoulders shows a familiar discomfort that comes from having wings crammed beneath delicate human skin, but a predatory energy is written in all the other lines of her smooth, pale skin.

Anna peers beyond appearance to find an unrecognizable grace, has to strain to see, to read—the light of this angel is muffled, concealed, perhaps even muted somehow. It hides who she is, hides how powerful she may be.

Fear pulses through Anna’s veins.

“Hail, fallen sister,” the woman says, voice ash-soft, body inhumanly still. She speaks slowly, each word measured by a voice unused to using human speech. Anna distantly wonders how new the vessel is. “I mean you no harm. I have long been searching for you.”

“Who are you?” Anna asks, ashamed of the waver in the words. She wants to pull her wings and grace closer to herself, but she forces herself to stand her ground, keeping the institution bed somewhat between them.

Something passes over the angel’s face, some strange emotion that is gone too quickly for Anna to decipher it. “I was one of Father’s favored,” the woman says. “Now I am just like the rest… forgotten.”

That means nothing. They were all favored. They were all cast aside. “Tell me your name,” Anna hisses, flaring forward on frustration, both hands now curling around her sword.

Mistake. Castiel’s grace is now in sight—the angel’s eyes dart down to it. Then before Anna can breathe, she is _there._ Completely unafraid of the blade in Anna’s hands, the woman hovers mere inches from Anna, almost crowding her up into the windows of the dream room. Her gaze is strangely disarming; she takes in and studies every detail of Anna’s face before zeroing back in on the necklace. Her hand comes up as if in slow-motion, long thin fingers brushing against the glass, briefly ghosting up over the lines of Anna’s throat, but only touching air. Anna almost leans forward into that hand, skin buzzing with anticipation and _want._ It’s been so long since anyone has touched her in any way; it’s dizzying. But she recovers and recoils, hastily raising her sword back up.

The angel’s smile is gentle, perplexed as she gestures toward the grace. “That does not belong to you.”

Anna bares her teeth, retreating until the small of her back digs into the ledge and her wings splay out, dark against white walls. She covers the grace with a trembling hand. “I’m keeping it safe.” Her mind laughs with a bitter rejoinder: _nowhere is safe._

The woman doesn’t react to Anna, just stares past the hand to the light. “It is Castiel’s,” she says. Anna flinches at the name, but there is no wrath in the angel’s grey eyes, just quiet recognition. “The one who loves the Righteous Man. The one our brothers cast out.”

“I watched him fall,” Anna replies, questions swimming around her head— _where were you? Where were you as our brother writhed? What are you doing to damn or save him?_

“It was terrible,” the woman says, sounding far away. “I should have… but since Father left again, it is hard for me to see what the correct course is.”

“Are you with the Rebellion?” Anna can’t trust, can’t hope for an ally, but perhaps…

The angel’s gaze sharpens, smile twisting to something brittle. “No, I do not follow Raphael. I never have and I never will.”

Anna doesn’t know quite what to say to that. A treacherous little spark of hope curls in her stomach at the thought that perhaps this sister of hers is on her side. Or, at the very least, the enemy of her enemy, with all that entails. But it will take more than words to gain her trust.

The woman’s focus alters. Again she reaches out, this time to touch the curve of Anna’s left wing. But the intense, curious look on her face is somehow more potent than her hand. Anna cringes, futilely tries to fold the wing close and out of reach. The shift in attention causes a shift in the dream; the illusions start to fade—her back seizes, and her wings are revealed as the broken appendages they really are.

Sable feathers are matted with blood and missing altogether in places, leaving the skin shredded and exposed. Worse than that, her tumble from air to snow snapped already damaged tendons and bones, leaving both wings bent at unnatural angles. The pain that spikes through Anna causes her vision to grow fuzzy and bleed together into white blurs. Her legs buckle, she gropes for stability, and finds it when the angel catches her upper arm and holds her steady with one hand. She inhales sharply, the taste of snow on her tongue. The edge of consciousness cuts in, threatening to pull her back into the ice of her Hell.

“You can’t fly with those.” The angel sounds gentle, so comforting. Warm fingers brush through primaries, beginning to straighten out twisted patches. “Please let me help you, Anna. I can fix you if you’ll let me.” Anna can’t concentrate enough to reply, but she keeps trying to fold in on herself, the word there in her mind: _don’t._ “You can’t outrun our brothers forever,” the woman murmurs. “Not on your own. You can’t protect Castiel’s grace without assistance, without putting your trust in an ally.” Anna feels the hint of Heaven’s light, the promise of healing in the woman’s touch, and she almost leans in, almost gives herself over to it. The woman’s next words shatter the spell: “Have faith in me.”

“Have faith,” Anna manages to spit, voice rough, breath rushing out in white as ice creeps across the dirty floor. She jerks away from the woman, watching her image flicker and fade. “Faith,” she repeats, trying to hold on for just another moment. “I’m short on that these days.”

She gasps awake, her cries shattering in freezing air. Somehow she climbs to her feet, bending around to survey the damage, wondering if she has any hope of setting the bones herself. Seconds extend into long useless minutes of fiery agony until she gives up. She coats her hands in the blood seeping from the torn areas, trying to ignore the ivory bones poking through.

Surrounded by the endless stretch of snow and sky, she fixes her sigils, vowing not to admit defeat. She can’t fly, but she can still walk. Broken wings dragging through the snow and shaking hands curling around Castiel’s grace, she continues on.

-

The angel still visits her dreams in spite of the symbols. Anna has no idea how that is possible—the sigils should protect her, render her completely invisible in and out of the dream-world, but somehow this one angel is immune.

She never touches Anna, keeping her distance, moving cautiously as one would around a wounded, cornered animal. She reaches out with graceful, beautiful hands that never make contact. “I will not hurt you,” she says. She’s earnest sometimes, comes close to pleading—the look that comes across her face in those moments lessens the ageless quality of her, makes her fit the humanness of her vessel. There is always a pure sincerity in her voice and eyes. The words change, but the meaning is always the same: _please, believe me, believe_ in _me._

Anna can’t help but remember that the last time she really believed in anyone other than herself, she was betrayed. “Tell me your name,” she demands over and over, but the angel always deflects, the grey of her irises darkening like mournful clouds. Once, Anna thinks she hears an explanation just before she wakes— _you will be frightened of me when you know._

Anna does not like the sound of that.

Still, no other angels find her. “I’m shielding you from them,” the woman admits when Anna brings herself to ask about it. “I am on your side.”

“And what side is that?” Anna counters, despair warring with the embers of defiance.

“I don’t know,” is the reply. “Let us find out together.”

Anna doesn’t know what to do anymore. She stumbles through the Arctic, thinking that if she waits long enough one of them will give up. Give in. She holds out for seven more days, numb fingers tracing symbols until the very last bit of strength and will in her freezes up. Eventually, the cold completely consumes her; ice settles into her vessel’s bones and blood. All her joints and limbs are rendered immovable. She lies defenseless and mute underneath the pitch-black sky, her nearly lifeless body curled in the snow, Castiel’s grace clutched close to her chest. She doesn’t know if she’s asleep or awake when the angel finds her.

“Anna, _ahuva,_ ” the woman whispers as she approaches. There is no hesitation in her now as she unfurls her wings, finally unmasking her grace.

Anna is—awestruck. Terrified.

The angel is _majestic._ A breath of the power of God. Her wings are enormous, every feather in pristine condition and colored a shade of white that is purer than anything Anna has seen before. The wings tower over the tall woman, stretched to their fullest extent in one strong, commanding beat. Snow scatters in the frigid air like tiny sparks dissolving in the light of her glorious grace. That grace explodes outward as a reflection of eternal light filling up Anna’s vision, swallowing up all darkness and shadows of the night. Anna simultaneously wants to shrink away from and draw closer to that pure fire. The sight is a homecoming, and Anna gathers together the fading shreds of her own grace and offers them in a silent, desperate prayer: _please, mercy, please…_ She’s not sure if she’s asking for death or healing.

The angel comes forward, gentle as she cradles Anna’s broken body in her arms, sheltering her with her wings. Their graces touch and spark—a choked sob of relief and wonder bursts from Anna’s blistered lips at the warmth and welcome. The angel’s grace is the most beautiful, powerful, compassionate thing she has ever felt. The touch of it is the comforting warmth of spring, melting effortlessly through ice, snow, and frost. It is the lush green of life in the Garden, a taste of golden Paradise. Anna greedily buries herself inside of it, twisting into the pulsing radiance.

She feels a moan from the angel’s mouth, breath rushing hot against her neck. Arms fold and lift her up, pressing her close, closer. There is recognition in the slide of skin across skin, mutual longing for angelic and human contact after being cut off and alone. They are two forgotten angels coming together, lights fusing and blending in the barren darkness of an arctic night. Anna’s grace heals as the other angel pours herself into the frostbitten cracks and fissures. This, _this_ is what Anna missed, resurrection and renewal, companionship and communion. Where before there had been a brokenness and a void, now bright warmth and delight flow through both of them.

The sun rises in the east like a benediction, and Anna laughs helplessly through tears. Pink, orange, and yellow beams from God’s glorious star arch over the blinding white and blue of their combining graces. For the first time in centuries, Anna feels hope. She lets her desperate grip on Castiel’s grace loosen, trusting that both it and her are at last safe. Bitterness and pain no longer exist; she is known, understood, cherished, breathless as human languages fail her.

Sophia grips her tight and carries her away.


	5. Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a fallen angel sleeping in the backseat of the Impala.

There’s a fallen angel sleeping in the backseat of the Impala. Dean white-knuckles the steering wheel and presses harder on the accelerator. He knows they’re running—but from what? Or, more accurately, who?

He briefly glances in the rearview at Castiel’s prone form to check that he’s still sleeping peacefully. It’s been almost a day straight of driving—Dean’s exhausted himself, but there’s no way he’s stopping this car until they’re safe at Bobby’s. It’s the only place Dean knows for sure is demon-proof and angel-proof.

Dean thinks the angel-proofing is what they really need. It’s been a tense few weeks since he found Castiel in that seaside hospital and more and more it’s looking like Castiel’s dick siblings are the ones that put him there.

It’s just a pity Castiel doesn’t remember anything. Except when he’s sleeping. It’s like Anna all over again with the subconscious remembering, but this time around there’s no psychic to bring it all back to the surface. What there is, though, is a journal—a journal that sits in the shotgun seat on top of a stack of medical files and bills.

“I’ve written down all the things he’s said in his sleep,” the pretty blonde nurse, Abigail, told Dean when she handed him the little book. “There are other things too, things I thought would help him. We’re all rooting for him to recover, Mr. Smith. We’re really glad you came for him.”

Dean wanted to smile, make a light joke for levity’s sake, but he looked over at Cas, lying broken in that hospital bed, and he felt a chill come over him. _I thought no one would come,_ Cas had said as he clung to Dean in those first moments of the reunion. “I’ll always come for him,” Dean told the nurse. “We’re like family.”

Abigail covered his hand with hers on the book. “You’re in here,” she told him. “He never remembered it when he woke up, but he talked about you often. He wanted to see you before he was attacked.”

Dean flipped through the journal, surprised to find that it was almost laid out like a hunter’s. Newspaper clippings and neatly-written notes—Dean spotted a Polaroid photograph of Castiel’s burns and swallowed a curse.

“His family did this to him,” he eventually said through gritted teeth. An explanation of half-truths. “He comes from some crazy religious cult. He met me and rebelled. They’ve never forgiven him for it; they’re probably looking for him to finish the job.”

Abigail blanched. “We should notify the police, get him into protective custody—”

Dean shook his head. “They won’t care. The police mean nothing to them. And Cas never wanted to press charges before.” Dean looked the nurse straight in the eyes, trying to impress how unbelievably serious he was. “How soon can I get him out of here? I know places his family won’t come looking.”

It hadn’t been easy, but with Abigail’s help, Dean had gotten Cas out of the hospital and into the Impala as fast as he could. She’d even seen them off, insisting on jotting her phone number in the journal. “Unprofessional, but I’d like to know how he’s doing, if you don’t mind,” she’d told Dean. Dean didn’t have the heart to tell her that receiving news of Cas would be unlikely.

It’s just not safe. They have to get to Bobby’s and drop off the radar—human and angelic.

_Fucking angels,_ Dean thinks again and again as he drives on. _Fucking,_ fucking _angels._ There is nothing he wants more than to call down Castiel’s brothers and rip their wings out feather by goddamn feather. There’s a name repeated over and over in Abigail’s journal and Dean knows that’s the bastard he wants to gank first: Raphael.

They should have torched that asshole when they had the chance. Dean won’t show any mercy when he sees the archangel again. But there’s no time to be angry, no time to howl at the unforgiving sky until his voice is shot to Hell. There’re only a few more hours to go until they reach Sioux Falls, and Dean can feel that clock ticking like a bomb inside his head, just waiting to blow their whole world away.

Dean has never been a sensitive guy, but he’s self-aware enough to recognize that there are definitely times when he gets so wrapped up in his own crap that he doesn’t look up to see other people’s problems. Each time it happens, eventually someone comes around and smacks some sense into him, telling him to get his head out of his ass and pay attention. It happens time and time again, and when Dean comes out of it to find someone other than himself bleeding—sometimes literally—his first thought is _I should’ve seen that coming._

Dean should have seen this coming. Maybe not exactly this situation, but it wasn’t like he’d been blind to the trouble Castiel had been having in his sheriff duties. Twenty-twenty hindsight damns him; he remembers the steady decline of Cas’ health and the time he’d set aside for dream visits. In the most recent one Dean could remember, the angel had looked like a hunted, haunted creature dragged down by the knowledge that eventually, inevitably he was going to be caught and skinned alive.

Dean hadn’t said anything. He’d thought that Cas would ask for help, would tell him what he could do if there had been anything he could have done. And, yeah, he’d been more than a little preoccupied with grief.

God, Dean wishes Sam were here, wishes Sam were sitting there in that shotgun seat instead of that journal and all the questions without answers. Sam would know what to do. Or, even if he didn’t, at least they’d all be together again. Team fucking Free Will fighting against the not-so-angelic agents of Fate.

Dean checks the gas meter and stifles a groan. There’s no way they have enough gas to make the rest of the way in one shot. It can’t be helped; they’ll have to make a quick stop. He takes the next exit off the highway and pulls into the nearest station. Cas is still snoring faintly in the backseat. He barely twitches when Dean kills the ignition and hops out to fill his baby up.

Good. Cas needs the rest. It’s a pain in the ass getting him to sleep—not that Dean can blame him much on that front. Dean is certainly no stranger to nightmares. And waking up to the same blank slate must be a nightmare all on its own.

Dean reaches through his open window and grabs Abigail’s journal, flips through it while he waits for the tank to fill. Bits and pieces jump out at random—there’s at least three pages worth of a list of languages that Dean assumes Castiel still knows, that damned picture of Castiel’s skin grafts, and pages and pages of Castiel’s nightmares.

_Drowning again,_ is scrawled in messy, shaky script. _Always drowning. Nothing to hold on to._ And then a couple pages earlier in the clean, neat script of a different hand: _An argument. Pleading with Raphael. Lost? “Father, why have you forsaken me?”_

_“Domine, miserere nobis,”_ Dean reads aloud, running a hand over his face. It breaks something inside him that Cas still called out to the Father they all knew was AWOL. Dean bites back the snarl he wants to hurl into the night— _why, you son of a bitch, why didn’t you stop this?_ —because it’s futile, so fucking futile.

Cas shivers visibly in the backseat in spite of the blanket Dean draped over him. Dean closes the journal and tosses it back in the car, turning his attention fully to Cas. Sometimes a shiver is a sign of one of Castiel’s nightmares. Dean remembers the first one he witnessed, the first night he’d spent in the hospital at Castiel’s bedside. Cas had been terrified of Dean leaving, saying over and over that he was scared that he’d wake up and Dean wouldn’t be there.

“Please, please, please be here when I wake up,” he’d said, clutching Dean’s hand hard enough to hurt. He begged the hospital staff, “Let him stay, please, so I know he’s real, so I know he’s _here.”_

Dean put up his own fight when someone mentioned rules and visiting hours. “I’m all he has. Make a damn exception for us.”

That night had been rough. Castiel had multiple nightmares, some about his brothers, some about drowning. Waking Cas up yielded a routine similar to the one Dean had used years ago on a much younger Sam. Dean would speak slowly and soothingly, murmuring “I’ve got you, you’re safe,” while he held Cas to make sure the angel didn’t fall or hurt himself. And then Cas would wrestle with his panic, wrestle with _Dean_ until he finally grasped consciousness and wept in Dean’s lap like a child.

Dean hates seeing Cas like that, hates that there’s nothing he can do to prevent it. He can’t press two fingers to Castiel’s forehead and save him from his memories.

The worst of it is that Dean is sometimes not so sure he should wake Cas up from the dreams, just in case he wakes up once, just this once with some recollection of the past. On the other hand, Dean knows the last thing they need right now is the angels dream-walking through Castiel’s head. Either way, he figured out best he could how to pick up on signs of a nightmare brewing in Castiel’s mind, and he shakes Cas awake before it gets too bad.

Dean keeps one eye on Castiel while he pays the gas pump. The fallen angel gives a full-body shudder, his eyes darting from side-to-side beneath his eyelids. He mutters something sharp and angry—it sounds like Enochian to Dean’s ears, which means this is an angel-dream rather than an ocean-one. The jury’s still out on which one is worse.

Regardless. “Cas,” Dean says clearly, opening the door and climbing into the backseat to go through the whole song and dance of shaking Cas awake. He clamps a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, and repeats, _“Cas.”_

It must be early in the dream because that’s all it takes. Castiel startles, hands flying up and grasping the front of Dean’s shirt like he’s afraid he’s falling. His impossibly blue eyes are wide and unseeing for just a second before they lock onto Dean’s and Castiel breathes a sigh of relief.

“Hey,” Dean says, keeping his grip on Cas firm because Cas always seems to need an anchor in these first few minutes, and Dean’s the only one he’s got.

Slowly, so slowly, Castiel’s fingers loosen their death-grip. “Dean,” he says, like always. Cas slumps back against the leather seat and shakes his head in answer to the unasked question. _No, I don’t remember anything yet._

Dean doesn’t let go until Cas does, though he’s quick about darting back into the driver’s seat and getting them moving. “We’re almost to Bobby’s. A few more hours and then we should be safe.”

“Safe,” Cas echoes, hollow-sounding. He picks the blanket up from the floor and pulls it back up over his chest. “Do you mind turning the heat up, Dean?”

Dean glances back at his friend through the rearview, turns on the heater, and doesn’t reply. Doesn’t know what to say. There’s nothing he can do to make any of this okay.

They drive on and on, but Castiel doesn’t go back to sleep.

-

The sun catches up to them by the time they arrive at the Singer Salvage Yard. Dean is bone-tired and hungry, but he’s not taking care of either until he gets Cas settled. Cas insists on carrying a few bags, even though they both know he’s weak as a kitten these days. Jimmy Novak wasn’t strong to begin with, and the attack stole what little strength Cas had left. Dean doesn’t argue the point, but discreetly makes sure that Cas gets the lighter load.

Dean and Sam crashed at Bobby’s so many times, the old man made them keys. Dean expects Bobby to have just left a light on and a note out, but the stairs creak with his descent.

“Hey, Bobby,” Dean says, setting his duffle bags down so he can take Castiel’s. They’ll sleep in the living room for now—Cas on the couch, Dean on the floor. Dean takes in the sight of this house, this place he could’ve called home, but he looks around and all he can see is the glaring hole where another person should be. It’s been a year since Sam, a year since he’s been in this house. Walking in here is a painful reminder of that.

“Long time no see, boy,” Bobby says in his usual gruff manner, though his gaze is sharp, searching. Dean ducks his head and wordlessly hauls Castiel’s stuff inside.

He freezes when he comes back for his own bags because, look at that, Bobby’s got Cas hauled into a hug, the kind you give family when they come back from a hunt that ran too close to death for comfort. It should be a good thing, it should make Dean happy to see Cas being greeted like that, but it’s ice-cold comfort when he catches the look in Castiel’s eyes.

It’s the empty ocean. Blank and blue. Of course. Castiel still can’t remember anything.

Dean swallows hard and throws his bags down onto the kitchen table.


	6. Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dream changes. He falls from a great height.

The dream changes.

He falls from a great height. The wind howls as it whips around his body, but he pays it no heed— _cannot_ because the wind and the sound are not at the forefront of his mind. All he knows is fire. His body is encased in flames that lick along his skin—not his skin, he is larger than this skin he wears, and he wants to crawl out of it, break free—trying to reach the light inside him, the blue-green light of his soul— _grace, venia, venia_ —

He can’t let it, can’t let the fire crack through his ribcage and devour him. It tears through his back, twisting down through the wings he frantically beats—broken, he is broken, hurtling toward the earth, a dying star. His screams shred through his vocal chords as he digs blunt fingernails through the reddened skin of his throat down—down, down, all the way down—to grip and _pull._

Blindly, he tears himself apart. The light falls from his fingers, falls far from him—safe. He closes his eyes and the surface of the ocean rises up to take him in its arms.

The water swallows his cry, the name, the name he must always remember. He reaches for it, tries to hold on to it with everything inside of him— _Dean, Dean, De_ —

The waves crush him into icy darkness. He struggles— _please, mercy, De_ —but he can’t reach the surface of the water, can’t break through. He is falling, falling, nothing to hold on to. Nothing to hold on to.

And then.

Someone catches him. Arms encircle his broken, exhausted body and cradle him close. Together they fight to the surface, crash through it, and gasp for air.

“I’ve got you, Cas,” he hears behind him, a familiar voice calling over the wind and the waves. “I’m not letting you go.”

-

Castiel wakes up in Bobby Singer’s guest room with the dream still in his head. Dean lies beside him, an arm slung around Castiel’s waist to keep him warm and close. Sometimes not even the heaviest blankets and Dean’s body heat can keep Cas from shivering—and now he thinks he might have a clearer idea as to why.

The light inside him, the one that he let fall into the deep ocean. His _grace._

Dean shifts on the other side of the bed. “You all right?” he murmurs, voice thick and slow, breath puffing out against the back of Castiel’s neck.

Cas contemplates rolling over to face him, but decides against it. Dean sounds exhausted. “Yes,” Cas whispers, swallowing down guilt. It can’t be easy taking care of him all the time. He knows the only reason Dean is even in this bed with him is because Cas needs to see something familiar when he wakes, needs to be kept warm and safe like a child.

Castiel doesn’t remember being a child, didn’t know until a few weeks ago that’s how he was behaving. He’d woken up shuddering from a nightmare and was unable to go back to sleep until he padded downstairs on bare feet to the couch where Dean slept. Dean, upon waking, had sighed, _you’re like a little kid, Cas. Like Sam when he was five._

Cas was afraid to ask who Sam was. The grief in Dean’s voice when he said that name was heavy enough to drown in.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel says now. “For waking you.” For a lot of things.

Dean yawns, hitching Castiel closer so they are chest to back. “Not your fault.”

Cas sinks into the embrace, hearing more echoes of that past conversation. _I’m not usually this touchy-feely,_ Dean told him as they’d climbed into the guest bed. _So don’t get used to this._ Cas tried to obey, but he knows that three weeks of being held like this are going to make sleeping alone feel lonely.

Silence falls, twisting into the unspoken question, but this time Castiel has a different answer. “I dreamed I was falling and had wings of fire.” Cas feels tension snapping tight in Dean, but keeps going. “And I had a light, a _grace_ inside me.”

“Do you remember what happened to it?” Dean asks very quietly. Carefully.

“I had to rip it out and throw it into the ocean,” Cas says. “I didn’t see where it fell.”

Dean sighs, pulls away, and sits up. Cas instantly misses his warmth. “So it’s lost,” Dean says, weary disappointment in the pronouncement. Cas rolls over, but can only see Dean’s bare back, the slumped lines of his shoulders.

Castiel’s own back still has angry, red indents—healed and no longer painful, but still there all the same. The memory of the fire cuts phantom pain between his shoulder blades where his wings spilled out of his skin.

Wings. Cas believes he had them; it feels _right_ to believe that those were his. Bobby’s desk downstairs is littered with books on angels. Castiel flips through them every day, each word as familiar to him as Bible verses. _I was an angel once,_ Cas tells himself, though even in his head the thought sounds incredible. _I had wings. I could fly from one end of the earth to the other. Now I only fall. And drown._

“You found me,” Castiel says as much to himself as to Dean. “You saved me. In the dream and outside of it.” He reaches over to touch Dean’s shoulder, to press his fingers to the mark in the shape of his hand and bring Dean back. The light might be lost, but _they_ aren’t.

But Dean stands, avoiding Castiel’s hand and eyes. “Don’t make me your hero, Cas. I’ll only disappoint you.”

-

Dean leaves for the day with a list of errands from Bobby. “I promise I’ll be back,” he tells Cas before he goes. It’s the first thing he’s said to Castiel since the early morning. Dean’s expression is still clouded, his body language closed off.

Cas wants to say a number of things— _what is wrong, take me with you, don’t go, talk to me_ —but all he says is, “Be careful.” It earns him the faintest of smiles in return.

“It’s only a run to a couple of stores,” Bobby calls over from the kitchen when the dull roar of the Impala fades. “He’s been going stir-crazy. And he misses his brother.”

Cas finds Bobby bent over a crossword puzzle with a pen and a mug of coffee in hand. Cas doesn’t know how Bobby and Dean can drink that; it’s much too bitter for Castiel’s taste. He finds a clean glass and fills it with water, remembering the doctors and nurses telling him the importance of staying hydrated.

“Is Sam Dean’s brother?” He asks, hesitant about it because he’s unsure if the name will bring Bobby pain.

Bobby looks up and over, eyes a little sharp. “Has Dean mentioned him or are you starting to remember things?”

Cas tugs on the sleeves of the sweatshirt he’s wearing until only his fingers are visible. “I don’t remember Sam. I’m sorry.”

Bobby’s gaze softens. “I know you can’t help it, Cas.”

“I would if I could,” Castiel continues anyway, in earnest. “I would remember you too.” He likes Bobby. There is something comforting and paternal about him. Castiel doesn’t remember his Father. Sometimes when he reads Abigail’s journal, he’s not so sure he’d like to.

“It’ll come back to you,” Bobby says before standing and tossing the half-finished puzzle aside. “In the meantime, how’d you like to learn how to use a firearm? It’s better than sitting around waiting for Dean to come back.”

Cas glances down at his hands, flexing the fingers. For some reason he finds himself thinking these hands shouldn’t hold a gun. _For centuries, I held a sword._

He misses the first few targets, but after that he hits every single one with certainty in his bones.

_Once, I was a soldier._

-

Dean returns in a better mood though storm clouds chase his heels. Castiel is curled on the couch under two blankets. He’s always colder when it rains. Thunder rumbles in the distance; Cas bites his lip against the thrill of fear.

He doesn’t understand himself, doesn’t understand why storms frighten him. There are still so many gaps in his mind. Still so many pieces that don’t fit together.

Lightning flashes with thunder following close. Castiel swallows down a name—a brother’s name. Raphael.

Dean enters the room with a plate, a mug, and a grin. “Hey Cas, I bought the best food ever.” He sets the plate down on the coffee table, revealing two slices of pie.

Cas can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. “What kind is it?”

Dean sits down next to him, bumping his shoulder companionably. “The best kind, cherry.” Carefully, Dean sets the mug down. “I brought you some tea too. Figured you might like it better than coffee.”

Is this an apology? A comfort as the storm begins? Castiel is grateful either way as he takes a bite of the pie. Thunder sounds again, drowning out the pleased noise he makes.

Dean grabs the other fork on the plate, glancing back through the windows behind them. “It’s just a regular summer storm,” he says, obviously meaning to reassure Cas.

Cas resolves to show no signs of fear. _I was a soldier, I was unafraid._ He could be that way again. “Bobby taught me how to fire a sawed-off today,” he tells Dean, sipping the tea. “Oh! I like this much more than coffee.”

Dean chuckles, licking red filling off his fork. “Of course you do. How was the gun lesson?”

“Strange.” Cas opens and closes his right hand, remembering the feel of the metal, the trigger, and the kick. “I remembered that I prefer blades.”

“You remembered a lot today.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

Silence settles over them and the sky outside grows darker. Cas ignores it, closes his eyes, focuses on the sweetness of the pie and the warmth of Dean at his side.

-

Night falls fast, pitch-black save bright flashes of white lightning. Castiel stays on the couch, trying to stop his hands from shaking. _Please, please, leave us alone,_ he prays, thinking of his brothers, the ones who hurt him. _Leave us, leave us._

Dean doesn’t mention the obvious fear that slices through Cas as the storm outside rages. He just hauls Cas close and runs a comforting hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel tells him, wishing he could stop trembling. He thinks he hears voices in the rumbling thunder, the howling wind, the pounding rain. “I’m sorry.”

Dean’s arms tighten around him. His voice is soft when he speaks. “Stop apologizing for things you can’t help, Cas.”

_I’m a soldier,_ Castiel thinks, miserable. _I’m a child. I am lost._

“You’re not lost,” Dean says, as if Castiel had spoken aloud. “You had a really good day today. A storm can’t change that.”

The voices seem to grow louder—it sounds like singing. A familiar song, a song like a name, like a call that something inside him answers to without a thought. He starts humming without realizing it. He hides his face in Dean’s shoulder, but he can’t stop hearing it.

_Castiel. Castiel._

Dean jerks away from him, jumping to his feet. Cas follows him up, stumbling over blankets and terror. It is so dark, and so very cold. “Did you hear that?” Dean’s voice is sharp as a knife.

Castiel doesn’t answer—it doesn’t matter; Dean’s already charging out of the room, grabbing a gun, and throwing open the front door. Castiel follows though he’s frightened, can’t help but follow the call as it grows louder and louder.

There are angels waiting for him in the belly of the storm.


	7. Sophia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father cut the strings when He turned his back, and now she must fly or fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I really veer off-canon. With the angel lore, in particular. If anything is confusing, please let me know.

Michael is not the firstborn. He has not always been considered the most high of the angels. There were few above him; there are many below. Sophia remembers when Michael was born, how their Father smiled and proclaimed that he would be great. He told the eldest of the angels that this son of God would one day be the prince of Heaven.

None objected. If it was God’s will that this little archangel rule over them then so be it.

The truth is this: the proclamation made little difference. When Father left Heaven’s borders, the Eldest were paralyzed by grief. And Michael rose above them all to be Steward over the Host. Sophia remembers how effortlessly Michael turned mourning into hope. She remembers the songs he made—ones of Paradise, of Father’s return. She still sings them even now, though it seems that the dream has been lost forever.

The angel in her arms is young, too young to remember when Michael rose to power. This fallen sister followed the commands of archangels until she fell of her own free will and was reborn as Anna. A renegade.

Sophia watched her fall, just as she watched Castiel. And before both of them, she watched Michael throw Lucifer down into the Pit. She casts her memory back, back, back—to Paradise and before, when she was young and everything was new and peaceful. Her family was whole. Before.

Sophia stood alone on the edge of Heaven each time her family fractured. Each time a light was swallowed by darkness, she wept, _why,_ why? Loss clouded her eyes as she witnessed Heaven split between two choices: Michael or Lucifer. Peace or freedom. Castiel or Raphael. Reformation or Rebellion.

It is difficult to see what is right, what is _wise_ without Father gazing over her shoulder, pointing the way. But she must. Father cut the strings when He turned His back, and now she must fly or fall.

Sophia isn’t quite sure she knows the difference anymore. Anna has done both—perhaps she knows the answer. Perhaps she knows the way.

 _But we must rest now,_ Sophia thinks, tightening her grip on Anna as she flies. _We must talk, plan our next move._ That thought feels strong; she grasps it like a rope and follows it to the ground.

They land in an abandoned warehouse she discovered the day she left Heaven for Earth. The air here is humid, close; dust litters every surface and swims in beams of light that arc through smeared and broken windows. Rust skitters up over metal bars and dismantled machinery, orange-brown against grey. Sophia’s feet touch down in the center of the large room, and the beat of her wings echo loud. She quickly folds them and muffles her grace, eyes darting to the walls where she painted her wards. They’re still intact. Relief floods through her.

Anna clings to her, crying out a sharp note of protest as Sophia gently tries to pull away and lower her to the ground. _Please, please,_ she sings, clutching at Sophia’s shoulders with human hands. Her black, disheveled wings rustle and shake in accompaniment to the song. _Don’t go, don’t go._

Sophia hums comforting notes as she strokes soothingly along Anna’s back. Anna relaxes into the touch, presses her face into Sophia’s neck and her voice drops low and soft with a contentment that borders on delirium.

“M’drunk,” Anna hums, reaching out with her little grace and brushing it against Sophia’s. Sophia doesn’t know what the word means, but thinks she has an idea when she studies Anna’s grace. It had almost gone out when Sophia had finally found Anna splayed out in the snow and ice, so Sophia had poured much of her own light into Anna’s being. After so much time alone and fading, the change must be disorienting.

Sophia muffles her own grace further, but softens the blow by burying her hands in Anna’s wings. “Anna, Anna,” Sophia breathes, straightening feathers, smoothing them out of their disarray. Her chest aches to see the scars all along the arches of Anna’s wings, and the patches that are completely barren. _You are still hurt, but I cannot fix these. Only time can do that._

“Sophia,” Anna answers, tilting her head back to give a smile that’s full of trust and shades of awe. “You’re Sophia. Eldest.” Her grace retreats back into her vessel, curling contentedly.

“One of the Eldest,” Sophia corrects, the English tripping down her tongue. Speech still feels unfamiliar—this vessel is hers without a soul and has been ready for her to wear for quite some time, but she has only worn it a handful of times. She is still unused to how tight, how constricting it is in body and manner. “We should be safe here.”

Anna sighs. Sophia watches the contentment of her grace turn into something sharper, clearer. A frown crosses over Anna’s face. She jerks away, stumbling backward. Sophia suddenly feels cold, apologetic.

Sophia’s hands are still outstretched toward Anna’s wings. They fold and disappear behind Anna’s back. Sophia shifts her own wings in response, pressing them deeper into her back, attempting to seem smaller. Even when she walked among her siblings in times of peace, she was always viewed with wonder or fear. She is uncomfortable with both. Glory belongs to their Father, and her family never needed to fear her.

Perhaps the latter fact will have to change—but not now. Not with Anna.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sophia says, letting her hands fall. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.”

Anna looks at her with large, dark eyes and curls her fingers around the vial of Castiel’s grace. “What do you want from me?”

“Direction,” Sophia replies instantly. Honestly. There’s a weight pressing down upon her shoulders, but the admission does nothing to relieve it.

Anna stares at her blankly for a long moment. Then a slow, strange smile spreads, turning into a mirthless laugh. “You want orders. You want someone to tell you what to do.”

Confusion tightens Sophia’s chest; she feels blood heat her cheeks. She wants to say no, that’s not what she wants, but it is, it _is,_ and she’s not sure why that is shameful.

“Whose orders are you following now?” Anna asks, throwing a challenge down. “Who told you to save me?”

Sophia tips her chin up, grits her teeth against the mockery in Anna’s words. “No one.”

Anna shakes her head. “Wrong—you’re following _someone’s_ orders.”

“I’m not following anyone’s orders. No one told me to save you.”

“Except you.” Anna softens suddenly, and she doesn’t look mocking or delirious now, only weary, and a little sad. “You’re ordering yourself. That’s what we all have to do now. I told Castiel that before he fell the first time.” She looks down at the vial in her hand and rubs her thumb against it. “We both made mistakes, but I have to help him now. I swore to myself that I would.”

“I watched,” Sophia says carefully. “I watched the Rebellion rip him apart. And I could have—I _should_ have stopped it.” The words come to her, rolling off her tongue with the bite of truth and shame. “I made a mistake by standing idle. I know Father would not have condoned Raphael’s actions.”

Anna moves her shoulders—a shrug? Sophia is uncertain what the human gesture is supposed to signify, but she doesn’t ask for clarification, letting silence fall over them like a shroud. Anna turns from her to walk about the room, studying the wards drawn out along the metal and stone internal frames of the warehouse.

“These are powerful.” She traces the air above a sigil.

Sophia hums a confirmation and moves to the opposite side of the room where she wrote their names. “You and I are the only angels that can move through these wards. We are safe from archangels and Eldest alike.”

“Have you thought about the consequences of our actions?” Anna asks, turning back to look Sophia in the eye. “If we’re caught by any of the Rebellion while we are here on Earth, they will destroy us. Do we have any allies among our brothers? Is anyone leading the Reformation now or are they scattered? I have not heard any news since Castiel fell.”

Sophia sets aside grief, though the news she bears is grim. “The Reformation is scattered across the borders of Heaven. Many have fallen, but those who haven’t are holding their ground. When I left, the Rebellion was mostly confined to home.”

“They won’t be kept there for long.” Anna runs a hand through her long, red hair. Her teeth worry at her bottom lip. “Which means we don’t have much time.”

A part of Sophia would be glad to hand the reins over to Anna and follow the plan that seems to be forming in Anna’s mind. But she knows that it would be wise to offer input to display her commitment to their cause. “We need to bring Castiel back. He is still the figurehead of the Reformation movement.”

The grin that spreads across Anna’s face surprises Sophia, and sends a spark of pride through her. “So that’s our mission. Get Castiel’s grace to him, and have him rally the troops.”

Sophia nods—and another thought occurs to her as she follows that line of planning, considering their options. “You say that our job is to think for ourselves and you know as well as I that goes against our nature, especially those who are not archangels.”

Anna nods, eyes narrowed as she catches on. “If we take out the leaders of the Rebellion, the other angels—the ones just blindly following orders—should easily yield to the Reformation.”

“That is what I think also,” Sophia says. The words sound strange to her ears—not false and not wrong, just different. A slightly uncomfortable fit, like this vessel she wears. She knows that she will have to get used to both. “Raphael is the archangel we need to be rid of, and he has one of the Eldest at his side. Jophiel, I believe.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Anna replies, shaking her head when Sophia gives her a perplexed look. “I mean we’ll worry about it later.” Anna spreads her wings, stretching them out and testing their usability. She pulls one around her body to run a hand along the scarred arch.

“I healed all that I could,” Sophia tells her, watching the way the light flows through the warehouse windows and plays along the feathers. They’re beautiful—so much darker than Sophia’s large, white wings.

“I will bear the scars with pride,” Anna murmurs, the words soft and strange in the air, as if Anna is unsure of the truth in them. Sophia feels a tugging in her chest and follows the impulse, reaching out tentatively to brush Anna’s grace with her own. _Beautiful,_ Sophia hums, but Anna shrugs her shoulders again and withdraws from the touch.

“We should go,” she says, spreading her black wings—and Sophia follows her to the place where Castiel fell.

-

They search the entire town in a matter of minutes, and find little sign of Castiel beyond the humans who have lost their sight due to exposure to his grace-light.

Anna suggests Sophia change her vessel’s clothes to something else. “Something less formal,” she says, which confuses Sophia. Clothes are just clothes to her, but she yields to Anna’s superior knowledge of human customs, and shifts her violet dress into attire similar to Anna’s. Jeans, a white shirt, a green jacket, and a pair of brown boots.

Sophia follows Anna’s lead as they walk into the local hospital together. Anna asks a few questions about someone named Jimmy Novak, but none of the staff have heard of anyone by that name. “What about Castiel?” she then asks, and Sophia catches one of the nurses giving them a sharp look.

The woman pulls them aside when Anna gives up on the people behind the main desk. “What are your names?” she asks, clutching a folder to her chest. Her knuckles are white and there are traces of fear in her eyes.

“Anna and Sophia,” Sophia tells her without hesitation. “We are Castiel’s sisters.” Anna lays a hand upon Sophia’s arm and hums a near-silent warning. Sophia steps back closer to Anna’s side.

The nurse licks her lips nervously, but there’s a hard challenge in her voice when she speaks. “Castiel isn’t here anymore. You won’t be able to find him.”

Anna lifts a hand, palm up in a gesture of peace. “We’re trying to help him. We have something he lost. All we want is to give it back to him before the rest of our family finds it.”

The woman studies them through narrowed eyes. “You renounced the cult?”

Sophia has no idea what that means, but Anna nods and the woman’s defensive stance deflates. “My name is Abigail,” she says, offering them her hand. Sophia follows Anna’s lead on how to make a proper handshake. “I looked out for your brother while he was here. He wasn’t in good shape when we found him.”

Anger runs hot through Sophia’s blood and grace; she sees it reflected in Anna also. “Raphael won’t get away with what he has done,” Sophia says. It’s a vow made to Anna, to Abigail, to herself.

Abigail nods, looking at her with more and more trust as each minute passes by. “Castiel’s friend Dean Smith picked him up almost a month ago. I’m sorry, that’s all I can tell you.”

“Oh, good,” Anna replies, and her relief is unfeigned. Sophia tries to catch up to the thoughts behind the words—Dean Smith must be the Righteous Man, who is hidden from the sight of all angels. Castiel could be anywhere in the world with him, but if Anna isn’t worried about the potentially futile search then Sophia won’t worry either. “Dean will keep Cas safe.”

All the tension that Abigail held in her body fades. Sophia watches her thoughts flash across her soul: _thank God, it sounds like I did the right thing. I’ve trusted the right people. Thank God, thank God._

 _Father had nothing to do with it,_ Sophia finds herself thinking sadly, but she says nothing, holding that grief-ridden thought close to her grace where no one can see.

-

“That wasn’t as fruitless as I’d thought it was going to be,” Anna says when they land back in the warehouse, back under the protection of Sophia’s wards.

“But Dean Winchester is hidden from our sight,” Sophia points out while she looks over the integrity of the sigils. “How can we find Castiel now?”

There’s a smile in Anna’s voice. “You forget, I know Dean.”

Sophia casts her mind back, and remembers watching the actions of her siblings during the Breaking of the Seals. “Oh,” she says, turning to face Anna. “The Winchesters helped you find your grace. And later you tried to kill Sam Winchester.”

Anna’s shoulders and wings slump, her face losing the light of pride. “Not my finest moment. That will make Dean’s trust hard to earn.”

Sophia doesn’t like seeing Anna discouraged. She spreads one of her wings to brush over Anna’s skin in a tentative caress. Anna surprises her by leaning into the touch. “Together I am sure we will figure out how to win him over.”

“Right,” Anna breathes, twisting one of her dark wings into Sophia’s, the scarred arch sifting through Sophia’s primary feathers. Sophia hums in pleasure, intensely grateful that Anna allows this comforting intimacy, even for a brief moment.

Anna pulls away and shakes herself, all business again. “I know where we need to go,” she tells Sophia. “Dean would go to Bobby Singer’s whenever he needed shelter, so I bet that’s where he is with Castiel now. The house is probably angel-warded, but the salvage yard isn’t.”

They spread their wings and take to the air once again. They find a storm and Sophia wraps it around them both to propel them forward faster and faster, riding the fierce winds to their next destination.

-

The broken cars shiver and shake as rain pounds against their metal frames. Thunder crashes and lightning streaks across the sky as they descend into the yard.

Sophia’s grace casts out eagerly into the space, her voice full of joy as she sings for her brother and his imminent return. She is hopeful, almost giddy with the power of a summer storm rushing through her being.

 _Castiel,_ she calls, and Anna joins her, their voices blending into one melody. _Castiel, brother, brother, come home to us._

The door to Bobby Singer’s house opens with a bang, a man charging out with a gun in hand. He sprints down the porch steps to where the angels stand. Lightning flashes and shows his livid face, his bright green eyes. Sophia looks at his soul and falls silent in awe before the Righteous Man.

Dean Winchester sees her first and raises his gun with a snarl. “Who the fuck are you?”


	8. Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re not taking Cas anywhere. We’re giving something back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for cutting (drawing blood for sigils). Again, if I forget to warn for something, please let me know.

Dean doesn’t recognize the woman in front of him. There’s a tangible power coming from her that raises the hair on the back of his neck and sets his teeth on edge. He locks eyes with her—her eyes are grey and wide with something like surprise—and raises his gun, curling his lips into a snarl of rage: “Who the fuck are you?”

He knows she’s an angel. He _heard_ her somehow over the wind and the rain, calling for Castiel. Well, she’ll get Cas over Dean’s dead body. He can’t kill her, but he’s going to meet her with swinging fists all the same.

The angel makes a strange, melodic sound that is definitely _not_ speech, and Dean is having none of that. The gun is useless, but he fires it anyway. The close range drives the woman back as the bullets hit her chest.

“Dean!” someone screams—Dean jerks back, catches a flash of red out of the corner of his eyes before a second angel darts into full view.

Holy fuck. Dean drops his guard in shock. “ _Anna?_ ”

Anna Milton spreads her arms. It’s too dark to tell if that’s a protective gesture or a peaceful one. Dean thinks he sees dark wings cast by blue-white lightning and that will never _not_ be a terrifying sight. He snaps his arm back up and empties his gun into Anna’s body because his mind is screaming _she’s the enemy._ The last fucking time he saw her, she killed Sam.

Anna doesn’t move, doesn’t try to stop him, just _takes_ it; she flinches as each bullet pounds into her vessel, blood mixing with rain. Dean’s surprised to see pain in her eyes. He’s surprised that she can bleed.

“Are you done?” she asks, spitting onto the gravel.

He lowers the empty gun. His knuckles flash white in clenched fists. “You’re not taking Cas,” he tells her—tells _them._ Everyone in the world he doesn’t want Cas dragged back into.

Anna wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Then she pulls something out from beneath the collar of her shirt—a glowing vial hanging on a chain around her neck. Dean’s breath catches in his throat. It’s unmistakable what that is.

“We’re not taking Cas anywhere,” she says. “We’re giving something back.”

-

Castiel is a shivering wreck on Bobby’s front porch. “Dean,” he gasps, blue eyes wild as he reaches out desperately, and Dean is there at his side in an instant, snarling like a guard dog at the approaching angels.

“Back off,” he snaps, keeping his eyes fixed on Anna because the other angel seems to be following her lead. “Back the fuck off right now.”

Cas babbles long strings of incomprehensible Enochian, the syllables rapid, shaky, and breathless. Dean wants to push him back and shield him from the angels’ sight, but Cas clings to him with all of his strength. “ _Dean,_ ” he says among the Enochian phrases, staring at his siblings in terror.

Dean automatically wants to fall back into the habit of telling Cas it’s okay, he’s safe, but the words won’t come. Castiel’s body is like ice in his arms.

The nameless angel says something, something in that melodic tongue that Dean doesn’t recognize, something that makes Cas go still, every part of him suddenly rigid.

“I don’t know who you think I am,” Cas hisses, sharp and painful-sounding. His voice breaks over the English. “And I don’t care. I don’t care that you’re _family._ You can’t have Dean. You can’t burn him like you did me. I’m a—I’m a _soldier,_ I won’t _let_ you.”

“Oh Castiel, brother, what did they do to you?” Anna says as she steps back—and there is grief in her dark eyes, Dean can see it clearly. The sky is lightening with the passing of the storm, but the air still hums with electric heat. “We’re not here to hurt you, Cas. Either of you.”

“Give us one damn good reason why we should believe that,” Dean hears Bobby growl behind them. The bang of the front door and the loud click of a gun follow his words.

Dean pulls Cas in closer and stumbles up the porch steps. “They have Cas’s _grace._ ”

“What’s the catch?” Bobby asks dryly, and Dean isn’t surprised because, hell, there always is a catch. He’s just not so sure they can afford to care about it this time. Not when there’s a chance that Cas can be whole again.

Thunder rumbles as the nameless angel pushes past Anna and steps to the edge of the wards guarding the house. Dean has poured so much blood into those wards that he could find the end of the ring blindfolded. His heart is in his throat as the angel approaches, even though he knows the boundary should hold. The house is protected against every type of angel, even archangels.

All the breath in his body disappears when the angel calmly, coolly steps over the line. Just like that, like it’s nothing. “You can keep Anna out,” she says, her voice soft, accented in an unfamiliar way. “But you can’t hold me back. I am one of the Eldest of the angels and you will listen to me.” Her steel-grey eyes cut into Dean. “We are your allies. We mean you no harm. We are part of Castiel’s Reformation movement.”

“What do you want from us?” Cas asks, and this new angel, she clearly doesn’t know how to lie or soften the blow.

She turns to him and straightens like a soldier standing at attention. Awaiting orders. “Captain,” she says. “You are needed back on the front lines.”

-

They are so screwed, Dean thinks as they let the angels in. But they don’t have a choice. It’s not like they have viable wards to keep them out now. And they could be telling the truth; they could be allies. Dean thinks it’s a little too much to hope for, but still—it’s possible. From what little he understood of the civil war before Castiel fell, he knows that Cas inspired a lot of loyalty.

Cas neglected to mention that Anna was alive and fighting for him. It’s Anna’s presence that sets off tons of warning bells in Dean’s mind, and all of them sound like _she killed Sam, she killed Sam, she killed_ Sam.

“We can fix your wards so that only specific angels can pass through,” Anna is telling Bobby. They’re all standing in the front entrance to the house. Dean hovers near Cas, who seems a little steadier now that the storm has passed.

The angels start ignoring everyone, all business about the wards. Anna brushes past Bobby to the living room, grabbing a notebook off the coffee table and pulling a pen out of her jacket pocket. The other angel glances at Anna, nods, and disappears into the kitchen. The sound of her rummaging through Bobby’s cabinets is brief. She reappears with a few large metal bowls and a knife.

“My blood is the strongest,” she says, matter-of-fact, and wastes no time setting the bowls on the floor, crouching down, and slicing deep into her forearm. No hesitation, no flinching. Her voice is steady when she continues, “Until we know who we can trust, only Anna, Castiel, and myself will be allowed here.”

“Yeah, and who exactly are you?” Bobby asks before Dean can, his gun still in hand though it’s pointed at the floor. “You said you were one of the Eldest. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

The angel cuts another line into her vessel’s skin, not looking up from her task. “There was a small generation of angels born before the archangels. You may call me Sophia.”

The name means nothing to Dean, but Cas gasps. “‘For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty,’” he recites, quiet and awestruck. “‘Therefore can no defiled thing fall into her.’”

The angel looks at him, her face full of regret. “I have not embodied that verse in a long time, brother. I did not act when I should have. I am sorry that it took me this long to join your cause.”

“I don’t remember anything about your war,” Cas confesses. “I don’t have any information—I don’t _know_ anything. I won’t be of use to anyone.”

“You’re not going back in,” Dean tells him, glaring at Sophia. “No one is forcing you back in, Cas.”

Anna shoots Dean a look then rips out a piece of paper from the notebook she has been furiously sketching in. She holds the sheet out to the group. “This is what we draw to allow Castiel through the new wards when he has his grace back.”

Cas steps forward and takes it, hands trembling faintly. “I’ll do it.” He looks at the symbol, eyes widening. “I’ve drawn this before. In the hospital.”

Anna gives Cas a reassuring smile. Dean hates the pity in her eyes. “It’s your true name in Enochian.”

“We should hurry,” Sophia says, handing a bowl off and cutting herself again to fill a third one. “We don’t have much time.”

Dean exchanges a glance with Bobby. _What do you think?_ Dean tries to convey. Bobby shrugs minutely, sets his gun down, and picks up the second bowl.

Dean gets the message. It’s not like they have any options besides trusting the angels. Dean gets it. He doesn’t have to like it, but he gets it.

They all split up to reform the ward line with the new symbols. Anna corners Dean in the kitchen as he paints his share of the complicated looking wards.

“I assume Castiel lost his memory when he fell. Has he remembered anything since then?”

“What’s your angle, Anna?” Dean snaps. “You need to give me one damn good reason why I should tell you anything.”

“This is about Sam, isn’t it,” Anna says flatly. There’s too much resignation in her voice for the words to be a real question.

“The last time I saw you, you stabbed my brother in the gut.” Dean shakes his head against the memory. “Not exactly something I can forgive and forget.”

He can feel those dark eyes studying his face, but he concentrates on the lines, the blood coating his fingers. A curve here, a cross here— _she killed Sam, she betrayed you once, she’ll do it again to keep herself alive._

“Dean, I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Dean paints the last mark then whirls around to face her, grabbing a rag off the counter to wipe off his hands because he’s going to hit her if they’re not occupied. “You killed my brother right in front of me!” he grinds out through gritted teeth. “God damn it, Anna, ‘doing the right thing’ doesn’t even come _close_ to cutting it!”

She scrubs a hand across her face. Some of Sophia’s blood is on her cheek. “I can’t change what happened, Dean.” She takes a step forward; she’d be threatening if it wasn’t for the wide-eyed urgency on her face. “Listen, there’s a war going on, a war that needs to be won by the Reformation in order to keep your world _living._ We can focus on grievances that neither of us can change or we can focus on winning this war.”

Dean is sick and tired of wars—of Apocalypses and angels and losing people. “We are not part of your war. Cas and I are _done_ with your family, you hear me?”

Anna smiles then; it’s exhausted and grim. She shows him her trump card: Castiel’s grace. “When Castiel gets this back, he’ll get his memory back. What if he decides that he needs to come back to the war? Are you going to honor his decision or cast him aside?” A mirthless little laugh breaks in her voice; it sounds like she’s _pleading._ “You know how stubborn Cas can be! Dean, what are you going to do if he wants to fight? What’ll you say to him? Will you _order_ him to stay with you?”

“Fuck you,” Dean snarls, but her words still hit him. What will he do if Cas wants to go?

Sophia appears in the room with a flutter of invisible wings. “It’s done,” she says, looking at Anna, not even glancing at Dean. “The wards should hold.”

Dean watches Anna’s face change completely when she turns to Sophia. Something softens; trust is clearly there, but also a strange mix of gratitude and surprise— _what are you doing here with me?_ that look says. Dean’s been the recipient of that sort of glance; he’s seen it on Cas’s face.

Speak of the devil. Cas walks in with Bobby at his heels. Dean watches Cas carefully, looks for any sign that he’s panicking, but nothing shows in his face or eyes.

“Time for the war council,” Bobby says dryly.

-

The angels stand on one side of the room, hovering in the space where the living room and kitchen meet. Bobby and Dean stand in front of the desk; Cas sits off to the side on the couch.

There’s still an invisible line drawn, but they’re all here and they’ve all gotta decide where to go next.

Anna’s eyes dart from Cas to Dean to Bobby before finally settling on Dean. “Okay,” she says. “Tell us what you already know, and we’ll work off of that.”

Dean swallows his animosity, opens his mouth to speak, but it’s Bobby who answers Anna first. “I probably know a bit more than Dean, actually,” he says. “We all know Cas went off to Heaven to deal with the aftermath of the Apocalypse and that it wasn’t exactly a piece of cake. He came down and asked me to keep an eye out for angel activity here on Earth. I’ve got a file, there isn’t much besides what sounds like some fallen.”

“When did he talk to you?” Dean asks, incredulous and, yeah, stupidly hurt that apparently Cas confided in Bobby rather than him.

Bobby side-eyes him, only a little apologetic. “About five months into your suburbia experiment. He didn’t look too good, but he insisted things were under control. He made me promise not to get you involved. Said you’d given enough.”

“He didn’t come to you, Dean?” Anna asks.

Dean grits his teeth, incredibly conscious of Cas’s silent presence on his left. He wants to tell Anna to fuck off, wants to take Cas by the shoulders and shake him, but none of that is helpful. None of that will accomplish anything.

Besides, the Castiel in the room doesn’t have any answers. He probably feels worse about this entire situation than any of them.

Fuck. “Cas didn’t come to me with any of this,” Dean says finally. “He dream-walked a few times to check in and see how I was doing, I guess.” They’d studiously avoided the landmine topics of Heaven and Sam. In one dream—Dean’s favorite—he’d taught Cas how to shoot pool. “Look, I thought he’d ask for help if there was anything I could do.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Cas’s shoulders slump as he puts his head is in his hands.

“Why weren’t you fighting on the front lines?” Dean snaps at Anna and Sophia. “You weren’t following him, were you?”

Sophia winces, guilty. Dean feels a vicious wave of satisfaction that doesn’t fade when Anna glares at him, hissing, “We’re here now.”

“All right, all right, enough,” Bobby growls, standing and crossing behind the desk to the drawer Dean knows holds a good amount of the liquor in the house. Dean watches him open and take a pull of Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. “The Reformation is the fancy name for Castiel trying to fix the mess Michael left behind. The Rebellion is led by Raphael—”

“Sort of.” Anna sighs. “He came up with the idea, but he’s not the full power behind the movement. The power is the Eldest he controls.”

“Eldest, okay,” Dean turns back to Sophia. “You’re one of them. You said you’re the generation before the archangels. Wanna tell us what the hell that means?”

Sophia’s grey eyes are the only things that betray any sort of emotion, and right now all Dean can see is loss. “We are Heaven’s strongest, but we are either impressionable or immovable.” She looks at Dean; the light in her eyes changes to a plea for understanding. “Imagine the closest family member you have. Imagine you have never been without him. Now imagine you wake up one day and he is nowhere to be found.”

She looks down at her hands and Dean is grateful for that because he’s thinking about Sam and it probably shows all over his face—the pain, the hurt, the emptiness. Helplessness. Yeah, he can empathize.

“You don’t know where to go, you don’t know what to do,” Sophia continues, voice carefully controlled. Dean knows how that voice feels inside his own throat—held tight and measured out on the tongue before it hits the air because it’s so damn close to breaking, so close to revealing just how crippled you are. “Some of my brothers and sisters became unresponsive shells, and remain so even now. The rest were easily controlled by the archangels who rose to power.”

Dean can see it, can picture exactly how that happened because it was him a little over a year ago. He was practically catatonic that first month at Lisa’s. He got through the days because Lisa guided him—go left, go right, don’t think about Sam, best just to not think period. After a while, he decided to try and make good on that promise to live the apple pie life—to actually try to _live_ it and not sleepwalk through it.

If there hadn’t been that promise, if Lisa, Bobby, and Cas hadn’t been there pulling him through, Dean thinks that he might’ve just laid down in that cemetery and given up. Let the ground swallow him too.

“So Michael controlled you before the Apocalypse,” Bobby says, bringing Dean back to the present. “Now Raphael does.”

“More or less,” Sophia replies, her mask of calm slipping back into place. “Since Michael went to Hell, many that once were awake no longer are. Jophiel is the brother that is directly in Raphael’s control now. You would know him as the angel that guarded the gates of Paradise.”

“The flaming sword,” Castiel chokes out, stricken. “He’s the one who destroyed my wings.”

“At Raphael’s command,” Sophia replies, soft. It’s a correction and a defense of her brother, but all Dean can hear is Cas screaming in his sleep.

“They’ll pay for it. Both of them,” he promises Cas. He’s not sure how or when, but it’ll happen; he’ll make sure of it.

Cas looks at his sisters—and something in him is breaking, it’s written there on his face. “So I wanted to fix Heaven, and Raphael wanted to what? Burn it all down?”

Anna nods. “Nothing matters to him anymore with Father and Michael gone. The hope is that if everything is destroyed, Father will return.”

Cas swallows hard, rolls his shoulders as if they’re hurting him. “What do you want from me?” Careful control there. He looks away, studies the window where sigils are written in blood. Cas clenches his jaw like he’s staring down the barrel of a gun.

Dean looks at Cas, this fractured version of his friend trying to hold it together. Cas probably just wants to rewind time to earlier this evening when they were eating that cherry pie and celebrating a good day. Dean sure does.

What is he going to do if Castiel wants to run? What is he going to do if Castiel wants to fight?

“We need you back,” Anna says, slipping the necklace with Castiel’s grace over her head, crossing to Cas, and holding it out. “We need you whole, Captain.”

Wordlessly, Cas takes the grace from her. Silence falls over the room, all eyes on him, waiting.

“I want to talk to Dean alone,” he finally says, staring at the little vial of grace cradled in his hands. He doesn’t look up as everyone clears out. Dean doesn’t watch them go either, just keeps his gaze steady on Cas, trying to read him.

“What is it?” Dean asks because he doesn’t understand—why isn’t Cas breaking the vial and swallowing down the part of him he lost?

Cas closes his eyes and bows his head. Dean thinks about how cold he must be right now and how warm the grace must feel in his hands.

“Everything’s going to change, isn’t it,” is Cas’s reply, and it’s not a question, not when they both know the answer is yes. “There’s a war, a war that I was an important part of. And if I take this grace back into me, there’s no escaping it.”

Dean moves the plate and mug still sitting there on the coffee table over so that he can sit down in front of Cas. He knows the angels would say there isn’t time for this indecision, there isn’t time for this conversation—but hell, Dean will _make_ time for this. “I hate to break it to you, Cas, but we’re always fighting. I’m not gonna lie to you, there’s always been something.”

“It’s not—” Cas growls in frustration, looking up, looking straight at Dean with those piercing blue eyes. “It’s not just that. I know that I need this, I know that this—this _war_ is inevitable. I’m a soldier and I’m empty right now without this grace. I’m not _right_ without it, I’m not _myself,_ but I—” He shivers and Dean is already reaching out.

Dean folds Cas’s hands between his own because touching Cas is not something he has to think about anymore. He’s used to it now, used to being a safe harbor, used to being Cas’s warmth. Cas is all that matters right now.

“I don’t know who I was,” Cas says, and he’s pleading, pleading for something Dean isn’t sure he knows how to give. “But I do know that when I put my grace back, something is going to be lost.”

“Cas.” Dean lets go of Cas’s hands to grasp his shoulders, strong and sure. “Listen to me, whatever you’re afraid of losing, it’d better not be me.” Cas’s eyes dart away—guilty. Dean tilts his head, trying to draw Cas’s attention back. He only wants to say this once. “You’re not going to lose me, okay? I’m with you. I’ve got your back even if you want to try to keep things the way they’ve been so far. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, okay? Fuck what your siblings think.”

Cas doesn’t look convinced. Dean slides his hands up to cup Cas’s face, trying to ignore the way his fingers are faintly trembling. He looks at Cas, doesn’t look away for a second. “I mean it. You’re not losing me, grace or no grace.”

“I’m afraid,” Cas admits; Dean thinks, _no shit,_ anyone would be. “But I know there’s no choice.”

Dean shakes his head. “There’s always a choice, Cas. Always.”

A smile flickers across Cas’s face—it’s small and sad, but there’s gratitude there too. “Okay,” he says, nodding. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, seeming to steady himself.

Dean lets his hands fall to Cas’s forearms, keeping the connection. “I’m with you,” he says again because it’s true. He’s serious. He knows where he stands; if Cas wants to pack up and go, if he wants to run from this grace and the responsibility that’s probably going to come with it, Dean will pack up the Impala and they’ll hit the road. They’ve said screw it to destiny and Heaven’s plan before, but it’s Castiel’s call here and now. _Que sera_ fucking _sera._

“Okay,” Cas repeats, opening his eyes. He looks at Dean, reaches over and grazes his fingers across Dean’s cheek. Dean gets the strangest feeling that Cas is trying to memorize his face.

Things are going to change. Dean wants to say something, wants to put words to the desperate ache that is suddenly in his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs. But Cas draws back and the moment slips away.

Cas stands and walks into the kitchen, calling everyone back together. His face is cleared of indecision, fear, and doubt. “I’ll do it,” he tells his sisters, and lets the grace fall from his hands, the glass vial shattering when it hits the tile floor.

Dean shuts his eyes and covers his ears.

He still hears Castiel scream.


	9. Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is work to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eternal gratitude to [cymbalism](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cymbalism) who has been my AMAZING beta since this damn fic started. The patience she has is super-human. Seriously. Thank you, bb. I say this every time, but this fic would be nothing without you.

The devil’s trap vent cuts shadows in the light spilling into the panic room. Castiel doesn’t know how he got here. His throat—his vessel’s throat—feels raw. _He_ feels raw, as if someone cut into him and flipped him inside out before dragging him across gravel. He swallows reflexively, tries to take stock of his body and mind.

He’s lying on the floor, barefoot in faded jeans and a black t-shirt. The cold concrete feels soothing against his overheated skin. He brings a hand up to his chest and _yes_ , his grace is there, inside him again. It burns in his chest, wraps itself around his vessel’s heart. He closes his eyes and allows himself to feel relief for a moment.

“Dean,” he tries to say, but his vocal chords are scraped, his voice reduced to the weakest of whispers. He opens his eyes, looks around the room, and sees a glass of water on the desk closest to him. Pain shoots through him when he rises to his feet. He hisses through his teeth, bracing against the wall to steady himself.

His back. His shoulder blades. His _wings_. Gone. He remembers now. They’re scattered over the seas in Heaven and on Earth. The heart inside him constricts painfully. Castiel recognizes the sensation as a symptom of grief, but there’s no time, no time to mourn. He’s a soldier and he cannot give such emotions his attention because they threaten to overtake him.

So Castiel shoves away all thoughts of Heaven, all the memories of how grief crippled his family, and staggers across the panic room, keeping a hand pressed against the cold wall for support. The room tilts for a moment, spins, then rights itself. He licks his lips and tries to find his voice again. “Dean!” 

It carries; he hears boots pounding down the stairs. The panic room door swings wide to reveal Dean. The man’s face is a study in worry and relief.

Castiel takes a step forward the same time Dean strides over—and something clicks, a piece falling back into place. Dean’s hands clamp down on Castiel’s arms, steady and firm, and Castiel stops thinking about what he has lost.

He woke up this morning with Dean’s chest pressed against his back, the man’s arm slung around his waist, his breath warm on Cas’s neck. The memory hits hard, bringing with it the phantom sensation of Dean all around him—an anchor, a safety net, words murmured in his ears, _I’ve got you, I’m not letting you go._

Castiel blinks and shakes his head, trying to clear it. Dean lets go of him quickly, the moment breaking apart.

“You all right?” Dean asks, but barrels on without waiting for a reply. “We put you in here so you wouldn’t break anything else—Bobby’s gotta fix a few windows and lights ‘cause of your screaming—but you’re okay now, right? Grace intact and everything?” Dean’s hands hover in the space between them. Castiel ignores the urge to step forward into the promise of comfort.

“I’m fine,” he says, automatic. The soldier in him hisses that to be anything other than fine is not an option. “Where are my sisters?”

Dean’s hands fall away. “Upstairs.” The question in Dean’s eyes goes unspoken, but Castiel hears it all the same. _Are you sure you’re all right?_

Castiel reaches out to push Dean out of his way, to prove a point, but his exhaustion ruins the effect. His feet fall heavy where he steps, his fingers curl around Dean’s shoulder for support. “I’m fine,” he repeats, willing it to be so.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, clearly not believing a word. And Castiel can’t argue as he leans heavily into the man, the basement stairs protesting beneath their feet.

“Our brother, thrice resurrected,” Anna says when she sees them, her voice warm though her face is guarded. There’s a distance between them that Castiel recognizes now, born of his last conscious meeting with her, her actions before her death. _We’ve been through much together, but you come near Sam Winchester and I’ll kill you._ Castiel remembers Dean telling him she had succeeded in killing Sam and that Michael was the one who brought Sam back.

But Castiel looks at his sister and can’t find the anger he might have expected to feel. He cannot forget that she is the only reason his grace was not forever lost or destroyed. And it feels so long ago, but she was the one who told him, _it’s time to think for yourself._ The past stretches out behind them, all the arguments and disagreements, but there is love too.

“It is good to see you, sister,” he says, and he means it.

The guarded look on Anna’s face turns into one of relief. Behind her, in the entranceway to the living room, Sophia hums a greeting in the Old Tongue, the melodic dialect sung before the Host switched to primarily speaking verbal Enochian. There are no words that humans would understand, but Castiel feels himself flush at the admiration and respect Sophia places in the notes she gives him. He finds that he cannot sing back, reduced to clumsy Enochian phrases of gratitude.

“A language the rest of the class understands would be nice,” Dean says, dry as dust, though the hand he presses against Castiel’s shoulder is gentle. “Where’s Bobby?”

“Still sleeping,” Anna replies, reminding Castiel that last night was a late one for all of them. If indeed that was only last night.

Castiel turns to Dean with a concerned frown. “How long have I been out?”

“Well,” Dean drags the word out, thoughtful. “Pretty much all day. We all kinda figured you must’ve needed the rest. Your grace had a lot to heal, right? Because of your wings.”

The words hit like a blade to the stomach. Dean doesn’t know. Of course he doesn’t. How could he know that Castiel is still not completely whole? Castiel looks away, looks down at a scuff mark on the hallway floor, keenly feeling the eyes of his sisters on him.

“My wings are still gone,” he admits, swallowing past a lump in his throat. “I’d like to sit down,” he quickly adds, obviously deflecting. 

Dean doesn’t say anything as he helps Castiel to the couch in the living room. Castiel tries not to concentrate on the pity that emanates from his sisters as they see how weak he is. He wants to hide from them, wants to curl in on himself—wants to pull Dean onto this couch to lie down with him. Castiel wants to lie down. Though he only woke less than an hour ago, he cannot deny how worn-out he still feels. But there is no time—he’s wasted so much of it already.

“Someone should wake Bobby,” he says, trying to keep his voice strong. “We should talk now that I’m… conscious.”

“Cas…” Dean starts, but Castiel shakes his head, forestalling any protests Dean might have, well-meaning though they may be.

“We shouldn’t wait.” Castiel shifts away from Dean and straightens his back, trying to at least appear alert. The tireless soldier. He’s not sure if Dean is fooled by the act, but Dean does relent, going upstairs to get Bobby. 

Castiel deflates a little once he’s gone, rubbing a hand over his face with a sigh. Though Anna and Sophia are watching, there is little point in trying to hide his weariness and the throbbing pain in his back. His grace betrays him, and it is as visible to his sisters as theirs are to him. He glances over and takes in the sight of them standing side by side, backs against the wall. No one is sure what to say to each other, so they keep quiet. 

Sophia shifts close to Anna, very close. Castiel almost smiles, thinking of Dean’s lectures on personal space. There is a shade of light in Anna’s grace that tells Castiel that Anna doesn’t mind. Sophia’s grace is harder to read—obviously muffled and held close inside her vessel. Castiel has seen the graces of the Eldest, how bright and fierce they are in comparison to even archangels. He wants to know why Sophia tamps down on her light here and now, but recognizes that it’s not his place to ask.

His mind drifts back to the last time he had seen angels of Sophia’s generation—not counting Jophiel torching his wings. Before that horrifying time had been Castiel’s homecoming after Stull, when he had been welcomed back in Heaven by tears of desperation. Every corner of Heaven resounded with elegies for Michael, the fallen prince, and God, the still absent King. The Host was blind and deaf to all but their grief. There was chaos, yes, but it was despair that had not yet spilled over into action.

His brothers had looked to Castiel the way they once looked to Michael, wailing, _save us, give us purpose. Tell us what to do. Father brought you back. Castiel, our brother twice resurrected._

Staring at their tear-stained faces and hearing their anguished cries, Castiel had found himself telling them what he had learned in falling. What he had learned from Anna and the Winchesters. The importance of free will and choice. The value in humanity—how there was good in Father’s last creation, good that should be protected.

He told them not to despair. They would build a new order. All was not lost with Michael and Father gone.

It was only afterward, when the Host took up the new songs of the Reformation, when Balthazar and Rachel had pulled him out of the reach of the crowd—it was only then that he saw the Eldest lost to Michael’s fall. Zadkiel and Raguel, hand in hand in the Elysian fields, staring blankly into the ocean of green and gold surrounding them.

There had been six in the Eldest generation of the Heavenly Host. Metatron and Sandalphon had been found catatonic in the Garden when Father had disappeared. Michael had ordered that they be left where they had lain. 

With Zadkiel and Raguel now lost, Jophiel and Sophia were the only Eldest left awake. Four of six of the Eldest in the Host were present in body, unreachable in mind. Castiel had to turn away. There was work to be done. 

Castiel closes his eyes, tips his head back, and allows himself this moment to feel the weight of how much work is still to be done.

-

“It’s good to have you back, Cas,” Bobby says when he and Dean come back down, a relieved smile lighting up his face as he claps Castiel on the shoulder.

Cas is rendered momentarily speechless by the wave of affection and gratitude that washes over him. “Thank you,” he eventually manages, voice thick. Inadequate words in the face of what Bobby has done, taken him—a man who could not even remember him—into his home without a question.

Bobby waves a hand, waves the words away. Castiel knows this is a gesture that downplays Bobby’s actions, and he doesn’t—he _can’t_ say anything else, but he wishes to pay Bobby back somehow.

They all take seats and it is nearly a mirror image of the night before, only this time Castiel is not on the sidelines. All eyes are on him in the center, but this is familiar now too. He remembers other nights, long discussions, pouring endlessly over battle plans and tactics with his commanders until exhaustion weighed down his bones. 

But the war councils were never as difficult as the actual battles, all the skirmishes and ambushes, desperate counterattacks and defenses, the graces of his comrades mixing with the graces of Raphael’s followers, but not in acts of joy and communion. Not in a chorus of peace. Castiel can close his eyes and still see the holy fire spilled out across Heaven’s fields. He can taste the cloying smoke.

The angels who followed him took up the songs he sang for them. They sang when he could not, when all he could see surrounding them were ranks of their wounded stretching for miles and miles. But still worse were the blank spaces, the missing soldiers, the ones who had been forced to fall.

Castiel prays that when he tries to contact his commanders, he will not be met with silence. “Heaven’s borders have held,” he says aloud, trying to reassure himself. The thought that follows is not as hopeful, but it is important to address. “For now. But I doubt we have much time before that changes and Raphael’s forces spill into Earth.”

“Let us cross that bridge when we come to it,” Sophia says quietly from her chair. Castiel is surprised the Eldest is familiar with the idiom, but she makes a good point. Focusing on the present situation is what they need to do.

“Do we have all the cards on the table now, Cas?” Dean asks.

Castiel frowns, going back over the information that has been relayed within these four walls. They all know of the war, what they’re fighting for, who they’re fighting against. Castiel can only provide personal commentary on facts already known—which is unnecessary. And, frustratingly, the “cards” they do not have but desperately need are the current numbers, movements, and whereabouts of both the Reformation and the Rebellion.

“I don’t think I have much to add to what has already been said,” he says slowly. “I need to contact my commanders to be sure they have not fallen. Rachel would have taken command after I fell. Balthazar too. Hester and Inias perhaps would have been next…”

“I cannot imagine they are not fighting hard for you,” Sophia says, her gaze soft, kind. “They believe in you. They believe in what you stand for. Even we who were not on your front lines heard your words. You have inspired great loyalty.”

Castiel tries very hard to ignore the flush of pride. He reminds himself that his siblings don’t fight for him, but for their home. Perhaps even for their Father. He must keep things in perspective.

And he’s not so sure how fit he is now to lead a garrison, let alone an army. What is an angel without wings? He can hear Abdiel, the soldier he tried to save before Raphael’s forces overtook them, screaming his name. Castiel. Captain. Will he still be their captain if he cannot fight alongside them as he used to?

Castiel shoves those thoughts away. “I suppose I should tell you we were fighting a losing battle,” he admits to the group. “Jophiel was relentless under Raphael’s command.”

“Hard to kill,” Dean comments, voice low, the words phrased almost as a question.

Castiel shakes his head. “Death holds no dominion over Heaven. We only hoped to capture and subdue him. Raphael was making full use of the flaming sword.” A shiver runs down his spine as the sick, phantom scent of his feathers and flesh burning slams into him. He closes his eyes, swallowing against nausea. Despair like blood on his tongue, on his teeth. 

Dean’s weight dips the couch as he crosses over to sit down next to Castiel, setting a glass of whiskey close to Castiel’s hands. Dean’s sudden proximity and the smell of the whiskey shatter the sense memory. Cas can breathe again. He doesn’t know if Dean did that on purpose or not. 

“Could you have taken Jophiel’s sword away?” Dean asks.

Castiel shakes his head, but Anna is the one who verbally responds. “No, swords are tied to grace. Only Jophiel and a vessel that he’s inhabited can wield his sword. The blade won’t materialize otherwise.”

“Jophiel was made a custom vessel without a soul, so only Jophiel himself can use his sword,” Sophia points out.

Dean picks up on a different thought. “Wait, a _vessel_ can use an angel sword?”

“When an angel takes a vessel, they leave an imprint upon the soul,” Castiel begins explaining, but Sophia cuts him off.

“It is similar to the mark Castiel has upon your soul, Dean.”

Castiel winces. He and Dean have never discussed that, the significance of the handprint on Dean’s shoulder. He knows that Dean considers it merely a scar, but Castiel had unintentionally established a connection, one with a number of consequences and possibilities. The psychic, Pamela Barnes, had been able to contact Castiel through the bond—contrary to her belief in her séance. Castiel has also been able to keep the most superficial of tabs on Dean’s health over the years. If Dean had died or been dying, he would have felt it.

And, potentially, Dean will be able to wield Castiel’s sword. If necessary.

Castiel braces himself for Dean’s anger and resentment at the omission of this connection, but Dean surprises him by only saying rather mildly, “That makes sense.”

“Must have been why you had that dream, Dean,” Bobby says. “The one that told you he’d fallen.”

Ah. Castiel had forgotten about that. _I dreamed of you,_ Dean had said to him in the hospital, letting Cas cling to him in joy and relief. _I dreamed of you. I found you._

_I’ve got you, Cas. I’m not letting you go._

If Castiel was still that man without a memory, he would take Dean’s hand in his. The urge to do so flares inside Castiel like the birth of a day, but with it comes uncertainty, fear. Dean would accept such a gesture from a graceless Cas, but he had never physically comforted Castiel. He had never held Castiel’s hand or body.

Falling gave Cas the courage to do what Castiel has longed to do but never dared. Reach out.

Cas remembers Dean’s promise, can still hear it, the words as gentle as Dean’s hands had been on Cas’s face. _You’re not losing me, grace or no grace._ He can’t bring himself to ask if that holds the meaning he hopes for. Not here. Not now.

There is work to be done.

Bobby reaches back behind him to grab his whiskey off the desk and pour himself a glass. He swallows it down fast and pours another before he breaks the silence that has fallen. “What about Sam and Adam?”

Castiel feels Dean’s body tighten like a bowstring.

“What about them?” Anna asks.

“Well, if you’re right about vessels being able to use weapons…”

“Sam and Adam can use Lucifer and Michael’s swords,” Castiel finishes, but he can’t look at Dean, can’t look him in the eyes. There hadn’t been the time or the manpower to consider it when he had taken command of the Reformation. Raphael wasted little time in forming the Rebellion, quickly dividing the Host and beginning his campaign to turn all he could see into ashes. Any thoughts Castiel had had of diving into Hell to save Sam and Adam had been shoved by the wayside. 

“They’re in the Cage _with_ Michael and Lucifer,” Anna points out, a legitimate concern. “We’d risk releasing them too.”

“But it’s possible,” Dean snaps, sounding almost shocked. “You could save them. Save _Sam._ ” Dean’s face darkens with anger and he whirls on Castiel. “You son of a bitch, you didn’t tell me, all this time I thought it was a lost cause…”

Castiel doesn’t get a chance to explain or defend himself. “It still might be,” Anna says, hard and blunt. “The Cage is at the bottom of Hell. Pulling you out was probably a cakewalk in comparison.”

Dean opens his mouth to retaliate, but Castiel says, “She’s right. I’m sorry, Dean.”

Dean looks to Sophia then. “You’re _Eldest_ , right? You’re powerful, you could do it, couldn't you?”

Sophia’s grey eyes are very wide. She glances at Anna, as if looking for direction.

“Don’t look at her, look at me!” Dean snarls, getting up off the couch and darting forward like he wants to take Sophia by the shoulders and shake her—Anna leaps to her feet and puts herself between him and the Eldest, but Dean keeps talking. “Can you save them or not?”

“Dean, it’s not that _simple_ ,” Anna says, shoving Dean back. Cas gets up and puts a hand on Dean’s shoulder, but Dean shakes him off, stumbles back from both of them, the look on his face flashing from fury to despair. Castiel glances at Sophia to gauge her reaction to this argument, but can’t read her. Her grace is pulled so close inside her vessel that he cannot discern any of her thoughts, and her face is blank.

Something in Dean crumples visibly, his shoulders curving inward before he storms out of the room. The front door slams, and Castiel starts to follow Dean out, but Bobby shakes his head.

“Let him go, son,” he advises, gruffly. “Let him go.”

-

Sophia, not Anna, is the one who tells Bobby and Castiel that she and Anna will discuss the matter before both of them disappear.

Castiel drops his head into his hands, unsure of what to think or do. Bobby heaves a sigh and then helpfully orders Castiel to go rest. “I’ll make enough dinner for you in case you get hungry, but sleep’s what you need. You’re dead on your feet, boy,” the man says, firmly but not unkindly pushing Cas in the direction of the stairs. 

Castiel can’t find the energy to protest. As he starts walking up, he belatedly recognizes that contacting his commanders is on the top of the list of things he should be doing instead of sleeping. But the exhaustion he’s been fighting all evening has reached an almost unbearable point. All he wants to do is rest in the bed he and Dean have been sharing. 

Dean is outside pounding new dents into a rusted-out car, Castiel thinks, and he needs space. And Cas—

Cas wants to feel Dean’s arms around him, wants to be surrounded by the man, his body, his breath, his scent. Cas wants to stop thinking of the war. He’s greeted by the sight of the bed still rumpled, sheets and covers still pulled far onto the side Cas slept on. Dean only commented once, calling Cas a “blanket-hog” and chuckling at the confused look Cas gave him in response.

“S’okay,” Dean had said as he’d climbed in after Cas, pulling him flush against his chest. “I know I’m just another blanket.”

“No, you’re not,” Cas had whispered back, but Dean hadn’t responded, had only hooked his arm around Cas’s waist, his breath warm against Cas’s shoulder. 

Castiel curls up under the covers, trying to mold his body into the shape he remembers. But the absence of Dean leaves the bed cold. And miles wide.

He sits up and rests his head on his knees, hissing as the fabric of his shirt runs over the scars on his back. He resists the urge to tug the shirt off and rub at one of the marks in the hopes that they will stop aching. Self-pity is a useless emotion, one he should not indulge in.

It doesn’t make sense that the marks should hurt as they do now—except that perhaps his grace tried to heal that area, tried to unfurl wings that no longer were there. Or perhaps…

Castiel is reluctant to let the thought fully form, but he cannot deny that there is a shaky, uncertain possibility that his wings will grow back. That his body—for this is his body, Jimmy Novak is long gone—and his grace will and are expending the majority of his energy to regrow his wings, feather by feather.

It seems too much to hope for. Castiel shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut, curling his fingers in the sheets. He lies back down, breathing deeply, trying to quiet his mind enough that sleep will come.

Surprisingly, it does.

Castiel dreams. He dreams of Heaven, of Raphael helping him move Zadkiel and Raguel to the Garden, where their bodies could rest undisturbed in the peaceful center of Heaven. 

Castiel remembers the Garden, the calming shade beneath the towering Tree of Life, how he and Raphael took such care in moving the Eldest there because the hold they had on each other’s hands was unbreakable. _Together,_ Castiel thinks as he lifts Raguel up in this dream, as Raphael lifts Zadkiel and meets Castiel’s eyes. They do this together.

Raphael’s grace is laid bare in this dream, storm dark and roiling with loss. Written there in Raphael’s grace, Castiel sees Lucifer’s blinding light swallowed whole by Hell’s darkness. Father’s absence is carved like a chasm nothing can even hope to fill. There is Metatron and Sandalphon sightless and voiceless with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge rotting beside them. Gabriel screams in the farthest corner of the world— _where are you, Father, none know_ —as he drowns himself in mortal emptiness. And Michael, desperate and angry Michael tears at the earth, his vessel’s hands broken and bloody as he is dragged into the Cage by Sam Winchester.

Castiel looks into his own grace and sees the faces of those Raphael considered beneath his notice—Elemiah lying in a white dress on black asphalt, police lights sweeping over her cold vessel and the dark ashes of her wings. Uriel’s body pinned by Anael’s blade, Anael fiercely snarling _there’s still me_ then staring at Castiel with all her hurt and betrayal as their brothers imprison her in Heaven. Castiel sees the thousands lost in Lucifer’s Rebellion, in the Breaking of the Seals, in the failed Apocalypse. Castiel tries to remember them all, keeps their faces and names cradled in his memory, regardless of their standing in the Host’s ranks.

Castiel and Raphael walk together, passing through the corner of Eden where the first humans once resided. The plants grow wild here, grass thick and tall, trees large and heavy with overripe fruit, vines creeping up the thick trunks, clinging to Castiel’s wings as he brushes past. Crimson pomegranate seeds burst beneath Castiel’s feet, juice spilling across the ground like tiny rivers of blood.

Raphael comes here after he and Castiel lay their brothers down. Castiel knows the path of this dream. He recognizes the patchwork of memories—he hears anew the whispers of Raphael’s grief when Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden, sees again Raphael speaking at great length with Adam, the archangel counseling the human, telling him of the first war in Heaven with a patience that he no longer possesses. Raphael wept in Michael’s arms after Father commanded Jophiel to take up his flaming sword at the Gates of the Garden.

The Host had all had so much faith then. _Father must have a plan,_ Castiel hears again, the hopeful chorus—but despair emanates from Raphael, crawling across the ground like shadows. Castiel follows it, some instinct telling him not to leave the archangel to mourn alone.

“What do you want,” Raphael asks him, voice low, thunder in a dying storm. “Come to mimic Michael and sing me a song of hollow comfort? You waste your breath, little brother.”

Castiel knows his reply. This script is going to play itself out. “I will sing you no songs.”

Bitter amusement flashes through Raphael’s grace. “You are here to comfort me, though. I warn you, you will fail in this. Go back the way you came. You will not like where my thoughts have gone.”

Castiel sees the battles that come after this memory, sees the ranks of his Reformation clashing against Raphael’s Rebellion, blood and grace spilled out across the seas of Heaven—and he wants to prevent what he sees, futilely wants to find another way. But he can find no words other than those he said back then. “Perhaps not,” he allows, careful. “But I will hear you.”

Raphael studies him, gaze measuring and cool, his grace withdrawn, curled tight and clouded. If it were anyone else, Castiel would reach out with his own grace, attempting to soothe.

“You think you know the grief I carry,” Raphael says. “You believe you have me all figured out. Perhaps what I have to say will come as no surprise to you.” Daylight filters through the leaves surrounding them, the last peaceful day Heaven will have. “I told you during the Apocalypse that I am tired. That has not changed, Castiel. I am exhausted by existence—by the world trudging on and on without meaning, without purpose. Without Father.

“I do not know how the Eldest sleep as they do. If I did, perhaps I would be as they are. Perhaps I would sleep. But as much as I long for the stillness that they have found, I cannot have it. And I can’t help thinking it would not be enough. There needs to be a great stillness. I want the world to stop. Stop turning, stop living— _stop._ Perhaps Father will return then. Perhaps He will hear the silence. Perhaps silence will reach where our cries have not.”

“You told me Father was dead,” Castiel says, trying to keep his voice measured. He had not believed Raphael when the archangel had said that God was dead, but he had seen the look in Raphael’s eyes back then—the anguish there.

Raphael turns away. “Death did not reap Him, Castiel. Or so the Horseman has said.”

Castiel wants to stop his tongue, but there are no words other than what is already there in his mouth. “Then you are speaking of destroying the world for attention,” he says. “Destroying what Father has left in our hands—and yes, perhaps taking it apart and silencing its heart, retaliating against Him in the manner you speak of, perhaps that will turn His eyes back to us. But Raphael, it is not worth the cost. There is _value_ in Life, value in the world continuing. I have seen it, brother. I have seen good in the world, good that shouldn’t be destroyed in a child’s desperate cry for attention.”

Raphael smiles then, the expression ugly and bleak. “You liken me to a child?”

Castiel spreads his hands in a gesture he hopes is both consolatory and honest. “This is what I see. We were made responsible for what Father created. He ordered us to protect people. He told us they were to be our fellow servants. Everyone in the Host knows that you said as much to Adam—”

“Adam _disobeyed!_ ” Raphael snarls suddenly, leaping to his feet. His wings snap outward, lightning furiously flashing along his feathers. “Adam spat in the face of Father’s generosity! He did not heed my counsel—and look at the world that has come from his progeny! The human race has torn the world they were given to shreds. You speak of _faith_ , Castiel, faith in the world, but I look upon it and see only darkness, pain, and war on and on, unceasing. This is what you wish for? This is what you place your faith in? Your trust and your love go to ashes and dust—to nothing, for nothing.”

“But _you_ are speaking of war,” Castiel protests, rising to his feet as well, though he tries to keep his tone more reasonable. _Please hear me,_ he thinks, the words echoing in his mind like a prayer he knows won’t be answered. He feels Heaven’s foundations cracking, hears his soldiers screaming _Captain_ as Jophiel’s sword swings. “ _You_ are speaking of destruction and disobedience. Do not wage war against me in Father’s name, Raphael. Because this will mean war—and Father would not want this.”

“You are not Michael, you are not my equal, you do not _tell me what to do._ ” Raphael does not draw his blade, but Castiel sees his sword hand twitch in an unmistakable warning. “You do not speak for Father, and you do not speak for me.”

“Why would Father greet us with loving, open arms if we offer him a scorched, silent Heaven and Earth?” Castiel insists, fighting the urge to step away, to find words that will placate Raphael. _I see your point_ , he should say, but he can’t bring the words forth. And they would have tasted like lies.

Darkness is falling in the Garden, crowding the edges of Castiel’s vision. Jophiel is setting Heaven aflame, the smoke poisoning the sky.

Raphael draws himself up to his greatest height, towering menacingly over Castiel. “Whether Father is dead or gone, it matters not. The world will be the pyre I burn for all of us. Get out of my sight, little brother. You say I will wage war against you if I go down this road? So be it. You and I will stand apart. I will not allow you to stand in my way.”

-

Castiel wakes up with the sheets tangled around his body, sticking to his skin. He struggles out of them, straightening their folds with shaking hands. His heart pounds inside his chest, his grace twisting and turning, sick.

He abandons his efforts at straightening the bed and wraps his arms around his stomach, thinking about how many times he woke up from his nightmares to Dean holding him, Dean anchoring him, saying _you’re all right, I’ve got you._ Cas needed that from Dean. 

Castiel doesn’t like how uncomfortable he is waking up alone. “Dean, Dean, _Dean,_ ” he breathes, half-longing, half-angry with himself. He shoves the nightmare into the back of his mind—and he can’t help clinging to the idea of Dean.

He should not _fixate_ on Dean like this. But he has always felt helpless in the face of his feelings for Dean. He has been certain of his love for Dean for years, but has never been certain his feelings are reciprocated. 

Ever since Castiel pulled Dean up out of Hell, he has felt inexorably drawn to the man. It scares him how much he must have revealed when he was graceless, how blatantly _needy_ he was. He wonders if he ever made Dean feel alienated. 

He wonders if Dean recognizes that Cas remembered Dean’s name before his own.

Things have changed, things are different than before—Cas made himself vulnerable to Dean without a thought. And part of Castiel wishes that he was still unselfconsciously transparent to Dean. That Dean was here and could read the longing he’s cradled so carefully in his grace.

Dean is Castiel’s anchor and has been for a long time. Even on the battlefield with chaos all around him.

Much of the time during the war, Castiel had tried to keep up the appearance that he was a tireless machine, the rock the Reformation stood upon. The eyes of all of the soldiers were on him. He had to stand strong, fly fast, fight hard. Lucifer’s Rebellion lasted three long days—Raphael’s Rebellion was lasting far longer, with no Michael and no Messiah to end the conflict. Sometimes the victories of Castiel’s forces reminded him far too much of Pyrrhus of Epirus. 

He kept those concerns to himself. He tried not to listen to his nightmares, the images in his mind of the world burning, of Dean reduced to no more than a pile of white bones above wasted earth. With those thoughts in his mind, sometimes it was all Castiel could do to stay focused, to fight down the need to see Dean, to hear him speak, to rest a hand upon his shoulder— _something_. To see that Dean was still alive and well, his soul a beacon of hope to Castiel in the darkness and despair of the war.

He did not speak of any of that, but his commanders saw through him easily. They told him to go, to take some time to clear his head, see Dean, and return to the war sharp. _You’re going to burn out if we continue like this. We need you at your best, Captain._ Castiel tried to protest, to say that the needs of the Reformation _must_ come before his own, but eventually he relented. 

Walking through Dean’s dreams seemed the easiest method of communication. Castiel knew that Dean was living with Lisa Braeden and her son, who weren’t completely aware of the supernatural world. An angel landing in their living room would probably cause problems Dean wouldn’t want to deal with.

That first visit, Dean was dreaming of being between hunts. Castiel found him sitting on a double bed in a motel room with dismantled firearms surrounding him. Presumably, he was cleaning his guns. A simple dream of tasks Dean no longer allowed himself to do.

Dean had initially glared and grumbled about Castiel taking so long to visit, but Castiel thought he could see relief in Dean’s face. And the conversation they had was surprisingly easy, perhaps because they avoided speaking of Sam and Adam, and of the war in Heaven.

Instead, Castiel asked about the guns littered across the room. Dean seemed pleased with the topic, launching into a lengthy explanation about the parts of each of the guns he was cleaning. How to take care of them, how to put all of the pieces back together. Castiel didn’t pay much attention, letting Dean’s voice roll over him, watching the care he took in handling each gear. He didn’t relax fully, but being in Dean’s presence was soothing, in a way.

But he had to leave eventually. Before he left, Dean reached out, grabbing Castiel’s arm. “Cas, wait,” he said, metal pieces falling from his lap and rolling on the carpet. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? It’s really good to see you, man.”

 _Likewise,_ Castiel wanted to say. _Do you know what you mean to me at all?_ But he was used to swallowing those words. He touched the back of Dean’s hand before Dean slowly let him go. “I’ll come back as often as I can,” he promised, vowing to himself that it was one he would keep.

And keep it he did. It was foolish, perhaps, to distract himself by visiting Dean, but he could not deny that he found comfort in the visits. He suspects Dean did too.

But who is to say that Dean finding comfort in Castiel’s presence means that Dean can think of Cas as someone to be loved? Castiel had resigned himself before to be content with friendship, brotherhood.

“Be content with it now,” he tells himself aloud. “You are another brother to him. Be content with that.”

A knock on the door startles him. Castiel grits his teeth as the pain in his back flares up, but it only lasts a moment before leveling out to a bearable point. “Come in,” he says and the door creaks open, revealing Dean himself.

“Jesus—hi,” Dean says awkwardly, green eyes wide. Castiel wonders what elicited that greeting since Castiel already made his presence known.

“Hi,” Castiel replies, climbing out of the bed and trying again to make it neat. Dean doesn’t offer assistance, just hovers in the doorway, his eyes following Castiel’s every movement. Castiel finally makes the blankets lie completely flat and glances over at Dean.

Dean is not looking at Castiel’s face. Dean is looking at Castiel’s chest where his grace resides in his vessel. Castiel frowns, looking down and placing a hand over the area. He is suddenly reminded of a conversation he and Dean had in the early days of their acquaintance, when Dean told him to stop reading his soul, _look me in the eyes, damn it, if you’re gonna stare at me all the time._

But it’s not possible for Dean to read Castiel’s grace—he’s human, he can’t see it. Castiel lets his hand fall back to his side. 

Dean blinks rapidly, shaking his head a bit as if to clear it. “Sorry, I—I wanted to say sorry for freaking out earlier.”

“I understand,” Castiel replies and tilts his head, trying to draw Dean’s attention up to his face when Dean keeps standing there in the doorway, eyes flickering over Castiel’s body. “Was there something else?”

Dean turns his head to look out the window at the woods in the dark. Cicadas hiss loudly outside. “Yeah, I—uh, I wanted to talk to you.”

Castiel sits on the edge of the bed, waiting. Dean drags over the chair in the corner of the room and sits on it backwards, resting his arms along the curved arch of the back. Castiel notices that Dean can’t stop looking at him, seeming distracted.

But Dean eventually finds his voice, and when he speaks, he doesn’t sound angry, only tired. “Look, Cas. Why didn’t you tell me it was possible to save Sam? Why didn’t you _do_ something?”

Castiel looks down at the carpet, guilty. “I had intended on assembling a rescue party and going with them myself to save both of your brothers. But there wasn’t time before Raphael declared war.”

Dean slowly accepts this, nodding. “Okay. Another thing... While I was at Lisa’s...” There’s a tight note in his voice. Something hurt. “When you dream-walked with me, why didn’t you tell me what was going on? That you were in trouble?”

Castiel shuts his eyes, scrubs a hand over his face. There are many things he could say: _it wouldn’t’ve mattered, it would have only frustrated you, there was nothing you could do._ Instead, he admits, “I almost did.”

Cas feels the weight of Dean’s gaze, but he doesn’t look back. 

“When?” Dean asks, sharp.

“The last visit.”

It had been a dream about a dimly lit bar. They drank together and then played a few rounds of pool. Dean had taught Castiel the mechanics of the game—and Castiel had beaten Dean soundly. Dean laughed the whole while. Castiel hadn’t had the heart to wipe that grin off Dean’s face by telling him the war was going so badly.

He fell three days later, broken and burning. The last thought he could remember before the water swallowed him was Dean’s name.

“They’re going to go,” Dean whispers. “Sophia and Anna. They’re going to the Cage. Anna talked to me after...” He trails off, sucking in a steadying breath and swallowing down the words that follow _after_. Castiel thinks he might mean _after I left_ , but if that’s the case, he isn’t sure why Dean doesn’t just say so. “Anyway,” Dean says, abruptly. “Anna said we need as many people who can use powerful swords as we can get. So they’re going.”

Castiel opens his eyes, wants to reach out and fold one of Dean’s hands between his own as he says, “You know I would go with them if I could.”

Dean locks eyes with Cas. “I know. How are you feeling? The truth now, don’t bullshit me, man.”

Castiel smiles in spite of himself. “Worn-out. Frustrated.” _Uncertain where we stand. Uncertain whether I will ever be whole or worthy again._

Dean makes a strange sound then, putting his hands over his eyes and peering at Castiel for a moment through his fingers. “Sorry, this is weird for me. You’re, like, lighting up like a Christmas tree. I have no idea what all these lights mean.”

Castiel goes cold with shock. “What are you talking about?”

Dean runs his hands through his hair, chewing on his lower lip. “Sophia did something to my eyes. Gave me Sight or—I don’t know, she said something about filtering my perception so I won’t go blind if exposed to grace-light. And…” Dean looks down at the floor, a strange note in his next words, something hesitant, almost vulnerable. “And I’ll be able to see your wings. I can help you with them when they grow back.”

If _they grow back,_ Castiel wants to correct, but can’t. Stunned speechless. He thinks about all the times he read Dean’s soul during the Breaking of the Seals—how he stopped when Dean expressed discomfort with it, but he hadn’t truly understood back then. Castiel has always been used to having his grace laid bare to his family. But it is one thing for the Host to be able to read him. It is markedly different to be read by Dean in this way. 

Castiel suddenly feels embarrassed, exposed. He finds himself wishing he knew how to muffle his grace, as Sophia does. He rises to his feet, stumbling in his haste. His face feels warm. “You must be tired. I can leave you to sleep, if you wish.”

“I don’t know what I’m seeing,” Dean says, apologetic. “I don’t know how to read you.”

 _But you will, you’ll learn,_ Cas thinks—and he really doesn’t know what he’ll do if Dean figures out how to read the love Cas feels for him. He should just confess it, shouldn’t he? But when he opens his mouth to do so, the words don’t come. Instead, he says, “I’ll leave you to rest.”

But Dean catches his arm and stops him from fleeing with a gentleness that makes Castiel’s breath catch in his throat. “Wait,” Dean says. “Please, Cas.”

The _please_ is what stills Castiel. He doesn’t want to analyze why he shivers when Dean lets go of him.

Dean radiates apprehension. “You don’t look at my soul, do you? Since I told you it bothers me?”

“I haven’t actively read your soul in a long time,” Castiel manages after a moment, sounding stilted to his own ears. “It is very rare that humans are given the Sight that Sophia gave you.”

Dean shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll learn to ignore it, if it makes you feel any better.”

Castiel doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t. He just watches Dean toe off his boots and leave them by the bedroom door before he walks over to what had been his side of the guest bed. 

“I woke you up when I came in, right?” Dean says, almost conversationally. Castiel can feel longing brightening in his grace as Dean takes off his shirt and jeans. Dean is obviously getting ready for bed—and Castiel doesn’t know why Dean wants Cas here, why Dean clearly told Cas not to leave. 

Dean looks at Castiel and there is something there in his green eyes, some message Cas is supposed to understand, but Castiel doesn’t know what to do.

“No,” he says when he finally realizes that he didn’t answer Dean’s question. His tongue trips over itself trying to find something to say. “I mean, yes, I—I was sleeping, but I… I woke up from a dream…”

“A nightmare?” Dean asks, gentle. Castiel swallows hard, watching Dean’s gaze turn to his grace for a split-second and then back up to his face. Castiel takes a step back, feels his face flush again. He reminds himself that Dean doesn’t know how to interpret what he’s seeing.

“Yes,” he admits. There’s no point in denying it. Dean held him through so many before. _Why?_ Castiel wants to ask. _Why have you done this for me? Why do you want me here now?_

“Come on,” Dean says. It’s a request. Castiel looks at him, standing there in his underwear in the dark. Castiel is still uncertain. He feels as if he is on the edge of a cliff, about to fall. 

_I’ve got you,_ he thinks, shivering again. _I’m not letting you go._

“Come on,” Dean repeats, so quiet, and Cas thinks he hears the unspoken: _don’t make me ask._

Cas wants to rest. Wants Dean’s arms around him, wants to fall asleep listening to Dean’s breath even out. 

So he gives in, without a word. And the two of them fold together the way they did before. It takes a long time for Castiel to drift off, but he does. 

He sleeps, dreamless.


End file.
